Child of Vengeance Read online

  “Get up, you little masterless bastard,” said the samurai standing above him. “You’ve a long walk ahead of you.”

  It was the man who had fallen from his horse the night before. He was still angry, a spattering of raw wounds along one side of his brow testament to the tumble, and he rolled the boy over roughly with his foot. He unbound Bennosuke’s legs and then dragged him upright, before reattaching a shorter rope around his ankles so that the boy could move his feet no farther than a forearm’s length apart.

  As the samurai rose to stand face-to-face with him after securing the rope, Bennosuke realized he was taller than the man. The samurai noticed this too, and it only infuriated him further. He roughly forced Bennosuke’s head down as he led the boy to his horse. There was another rope there attached to the saddle, and this was looped around his neck.

  Leashed, he looked around. The other four samurai were waiting, their horses already prepared for riding. They watched him dispassionately, their eyes cold. The samurai with the scarred face, evidently the leader, gave a gesture. One of them approached, and Bennosuke recognized his own swords in the man’s hands. The weapons had been lashed together and attached to a collar, which the man placed over his head now. On the front of the scabbards a piece of paper was affixed, heavy black ink characters daubed on it. Bennosuke read them upside down:

  A SAMURAI THIEF, they said.

  “When we arrive at the execution grounds, your swords will be taken and shattered,” the scarred samurai said, raising the boy’s eyes to his own. “Then they—the filthy, subhuman corpsehandlers, you understand?—they, who are higher than you, will drive the shards through your hands and your feet, and you will die over a number of hours. Thus to all who renounce the privilege of their birth to act like the debased.”

  Another gesture and another man came forth. He had a large, bell-shaped straw helmet. It was an instrument of shame, designed to encircle the head entirely and hide the guilty and the disgraced from the world. They forced it over him, and save for the tiniest sliver of light where the rim of the helmet met his collarbone, his sight was taken from him. He heard the men as they mounted, and then came the crack of a riding whip and a sudden sting as it connected with his shoulder.

  “Walk!” came the command from behind him, so he obeyed.

  Blind, hobbled, and bound, Bennosuke started to panic as he realized what was happening. He cursed himself for succumbing to sleep instead of struggling to free himself. His breath echoed around the inside of the helmet like wind through a cave. There was no give in the ropes, no chance to move his arms, which were pinioned tightly behind him. He tripped and stumbled often, over the unseen road or if he misjudged the length of the rope tied around his feet. There was no hope of running.

  “Come see the fate of one who steals,” one of the samurai behind him would announce occasionally, loudly and irregularly enough that Bennosuke guessed he was addressing onlookers witnessing this spectacle of the law. “Come see the fate of a samurai who has reneged upon his pride.”

  The rattling of the swords against his chest taunted him with how enfeebled he was, but it was these words that really tore into him. Here he was, branded and paraded as a villain, when he was as ragged and starved as he was precisely because he had chosen not to be one—the horse had been the first thing he had attempted to steal all these long months.

  Oh, how tempting it had been to consider with his stomach screaming and his hands shaking. It would have been so easy to wait by some isolated road for a merchant to pass by and to intimidate him into handing over coin or food or the clothes upon his back, or to sneak into some unguarded house and help himself to whatever he found inside. He was big and he was strong—or at least he had been—and he had swords at his side. Who could have stopped him?

  Only himself, and he had done so. He was on a pure mission, a saintly mission, and though Munisai had told him his death at the successful end of it would exempt him of all sin and shame wrought to get to that point, that did not seem to Bennosuke an excuse to abandon morality. Any act would be forgiven him, but the act itself would remain; what he would leave in the world would be the shame and hurt he forced upon others. This could not be.

  The legendary staff-wielding warrior Musashi Benkei was not renowned for the number of men who had fallen by his hand in his last stand, after all. What the stories told in excruciating and admiring detail, and what the paintings of him focused on with rigorous and adoring brushstrokes, was the torturous number of arrows he had been impaled with before he fell. That was what defined a samurai—no, that was what defined a hero: how much pain and suffering you could endure and triumph in spite of, not how much you could inflict and triumph because of.

  So the ravenous hunger then, the nights sleeping outside upon the earth, the blisters upon his feet, and the dizziness—they were all just arrows slowly running him through, he had told himself. You are Musashi, the voice in his head had whispered, and these are the things that you will be judged by when this is all done. Long after you are dead and this flesh is but a memory, people will hear of them and marvel at your virtuous determination.

  But all for naught. The theft of the horse had been a necessity, so he had attempted it and failed, and now here he was being shown before men not as a paragon but as the embodiment of ignominy. For hours they walked, and he could hear the disgusted muttering of those they passed above the crack of the whip and his own labored breathing.

  At some point he felt his bowels let go uncontrollably, as much from the neglect of his body as his fear, and hot liquid dribbled down his leg. Not one of the samurai noticed any difference. Tears stung his eyes at the humiliation of the act, of the fact that he had become so low that shitting himself made no difference to how others saw him, but most of all from the realization of his failure. He was going to die in total disgrace while Hayato still lived.

  For a while he was grateful for the helmet.

  Slowly his captors grew silent, no one left to parade him in front of. They were going far from the civilized parts of the world, down paths that no men wanted to tread but some nonetheless had to out of duty. In the body were organs that produced piss and bile, things that were necessary but corrupted by their very being, and so too in the world: they were headed for the filthy, cursed places that the corpsehandlers called their home.

  Dread grew in Bennosuke, the hair on his arms standing on end. The boy did not know exactly the location they were headed, for these outposts and hamlets of the unseen castes were hidden away unmarked on any map. They were condemned to lie on the beds of dried-out rivers where rice would not grow, for were they near bountiful land the contamination of so much death would surely pollute the earth and grow malformed crops bitter to the tongue.

  Death defined samurai—taking heads or pulling out their own intestines—but that was a culture of mortality that understood and cherished the inevitability and honesty of it. In these places the undignified practice of dismemberment was carried out upon the lower beings incapable of understanding such things, inflicted on the criminals at the execution grounds or upon animals that were torn and hung and dried and worked by tanners and morbid craftsmen who knew a dozen uses for the secret materials contained within a carcass.

  It was, ultimately, the difference between art and industry, and it was, ultimately, the difference between being remembered and being forgotten. No one spoke of these places, no poems or paintings for those nailed to crosses, no one to care for whatever brought the damned there. Those who entered were eradicated utterly from the world.

  Hayato lived, and Bennosuke had never been. That was what all these months of suffering had achieved.

  Even the birds seemed to grow silent the closer they got. Bennosuke felt his jaw begin to quiver as he became aware of a sound in the distance: the piteous howl of a man, all terror and misery, and it dragged on and on and grew louder and louder, welcoming him to the place of his annihilation.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The
swords rattled on Bennosuke’s chest as the men stopped suddenly, a harsh tug on the leash dragging him backward. There was a moment of silence and contemplation. Perhaps this was as close as the samurai dared to go, as though they feared being irrevocably corrupted. The poor wretch screaming ahead of them, whoever he was, screamed on.

  There was a foul stink in the air; the tangible rottenness that hung around these hamlets was not fit for decent men to smell and duly why they were exiled so. It was the greasy smoke of men as carrion, the curling salt plumes of flesh charring as the bodies of the condemned were burned. It was the stench of the huge vats of the tanners, filled with the piss and filth of man and beast that they needed to work their ghastly, essential craft.

  After a few moments there came the sound of a gate opening ahead of them, and a voice called out: “Good day to you, sir.”

  “Oh … good day to you also, sir,” said the scarred samurai, and he seemed surprised for a moment. Yet his tone was guarded but respectful; whoever had spoken was a samurai of equal standing. “You serve my most noble Lord Shingo also?”

  “Yes, that we do,” said the man.

  “Ah,” said the scarred samurai, and his voiced eased slightly. “Please forgive my rudeness. So many horses tethered here, it confused me for a moment.”

  “No need for apologies. I agree this is quite abnormal,” said the man ahead.

  “Might I ask why so many samurai are here in so foul a place?”

  “A notorious criminal has been caught,” said the unseen samurai. There was pride in his voice and the smile he must have worn was easy to imagine: the vanity of the triumphant predator. “A whole gang, in fact. A most troublesome cohort of villains finally brought to justice, and we are simply here to ensure that it is done.”

  “You ought to just have slaughtered them where they stood,” tutted the scarred samurai.

  “Oh, that was my urge, I assure you. But my superior personally wishes to see them ended,” said the man. “They were very troublesome, for quite some time, and so we wait for him to arrive.”

  “I understand, and I sympathize with you for having to linger here. But have you room for one more in the jail?”

  “I don’t see why not,” he said, and now they were talking like they were old friends, united in their abhorrence of criminals. “Where else do thieves belong but nailed up?”

  “I thank you,” said the scarred samurai, and then Bennosuke heard the gentle pat of hooves as he rounded his mount on the boy. “Well then, ‘samurai,’ it seems we part here. Face your judgment bravely, and perhaps the spirits will not be so cruel on you. I, though, have no such mercy.”

  Seated on the horse, it was no great effort for him to lash his foot out and kick Bennosuke in the head. It did not hurt much, striking him on the side of his skull and the straw helmet shielding him for the most part, but nevertheless a whimper escaped him.

  Bennosuke felt the leash being tossed, and then he was yanked forward. Hands grabbed him, pushing and pulling him into the enclave. He stumbled blindly, seeing only through the sliver of the helmet; a sense of crude buildings and dank mud. He saw the feet of men as he was passed from the skirts of kimonos and fine sandals of samurai to the crude leggings and straw boots of the lower-born guards, and above them all the screams of the tortured were ringing loud like the bleak peals of lamed pack animals losing sight of the herd as it marches ahead in the darkness, hope and warmth and rightness moving onward and away, always away, fading into nothingness before them.

  The guards hauled him inside a building and then down a short, steep stairway. They took the helmet and his swords away, but left the ropes around his body, and then he was forced to his knees and shoved inside a low cage of thick wooden bars. His knees gouged tracks in the sawdust upon the floor, and a gate was slammed and locked behind him.

  “Won’t be needing these again,” laughed one of the guards on the outside, waving his swords before him before setting them upon a rack on the opposite wall. “A samurai for you, boys.”

  Bennosuke wriggled to his knees like a serpent. What light there was hurt his eyes, but he saw that across the cage a group of men were huddled. They were tough looking, about a dozen of them with their bodies lean and filthy and their hair and beards wild and fierce. The bandits. They were looking at him warily, suspicion and hatred in their eyes.

  “Hello, samurai,” said one of them, his voice cold.

  Their nails were dirty, their hands clawed, and the boy realized then that though they were quite still, not one of them was bound as he was.

  THE GUARDS LEFT them, up the stairs and then out into the light once more, bolting the door behind them. What happened down there was nothing to them—men did not come here to be monitored. They came here to be slaughtered, and if that happened down in the darkness of some murky cell instead of in the baking sun atop a crucifix, it was of no great concern to them.

  The bandits looked at Bennosuke for a long while, a silent court. He tried to meet their gaze fearlessly, but he had little defiance left; he knew that he was trussed and at their mercy.

  “Don’t look much like a samurai,” said one eventually, his accent coarse. “Raggedy little bastard, is he not?”

  “Swords is swords,” said another.

  “Aye,” agreed the first.

  “What’s he here for, then?” said another, and now they all began to talk as though he could not hear them.

  “He’s made a big bloody mistake somewhere, that’s for certain.”

  “Murder?”

  “Samurai don’t murder, do they? It’s all pretty words for them, though men lie dead all the same.”

  “Rape?”

  “I doubt that, his balls have barely dropped.”

  “I haven’t raped anyone,” said Bennosuke, forcing what little bravado he could muster into his voice. “Nor have I murdered. Now, I would ask for you to untie me.”

  They laughed at his interruption, a cruel snigger that passed through them all. The boy had tried to speak imperiously, as a samurai should speak to peasants, and it must have looked ridiculous in these circumstances. It seemed to kill their interest in him, though—the sport perhaps too easy—and they started to turn back to one another. The boy sensed that his arrival had interrupted something. They were all huddled in a corner, looking inward as though they were plotting something.

  Of course they were plotting something—they were bandits. If they had an escape planned …

  He hesitated. Would the purity of his mission be compromised if he collaborated with the low? His father had said “at any cost,” but he was talking in terms of death and self-sacrifice; acceptable, noble terms. But Bennosuke knew he could not escape on his own. It was either die like a criminal and let the Nakata live, or live like a criminal for a moment and let the Nakata die. One had vengeance, one did not, and so the boy shuffled toward the men on his knees.

  “Please, untie me,” he said again.

  “Look to yourself, boy,” said one. “We’re accounted for.”

  “Please!” Bennosuke said, and some of the desperation leaked into his voice. “Are you to be killed too? We have to get out of here. I can help you.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. Anything.”

  “You know anything about locks?”

  “No.”

  “You have a saw on you for these bars?”

  “No.”

  “Then what use are you to us, eh?” said the man, disgust in his voice. “You aren’t anything now. Can’t even move your arms. Just flapping around, a fish on land, you are.”

  “My swords—we can use them,” said Bennosuke, jerking his chin to where his weapons lay outside the cage.

  “Aye, we can.” The bandit nodded. “We don’t need you for that, though, do we? Believe it or not, working a sword isn’t that hard to figure out.”

  “Please!” begged the boy.

  It was all he had left, but honest as the plea was it withered before the bandits. There were
snorts of irritation, disgust, and pity before they turned away to start murmuring among themselves once more. Bennosuke was left alone and ignored on his side of the cage. The boy started to writhe and struggle against his bonds with a final desperation, but they had not loosened simply through his wearing of them.

  He flailed in vain until, defeated and exhausted, Bennosuke collapsed onto his side. He felt the coarseness of the sawdust on his burning cheek, the weeks-old stench of it as bitter as the tears in his eyes. There was terror and defeat in his heart. Closing his eyes, he wished himself somewhere else—to a place where the starvation and the long, cold nights had not been all for naught, had been more than a prelude to nothing. The familiar dizziness pressed at his temples like two thumbs gouging his brains.

  When the pain passed he found his eyes were open again. Through the mass of the peasants he became aware of a single face looking at him. Older than the others, hard and lined and missing one eye. The remaining eye was upon him; cold, judgmental, condemnatory.

  It reminded him of Munisai. He could not bear it for long. Bennosuke turned away, still burning with shame, and awaited oblivion.

  THE DIZZINESS CAME and went, and Bennosuke found himself growing faint. Perhaps it was the stench, or perhaps exhaustion or starvation, but he knew that it was most likely fear. He drifted in and out of sleep where he lay, taking in glimpses of consciousness that seemed to swim before him until a fresh pang of disgrace drove him back into senselessness.

  Day faded into night, orange into blue, and then back into orange again as weak oil lanterns were lit. At some point he felt hands upon him. It took him a moment to connect the sensations in his head, and a moment longer to realize that they were gentle. He felt a thigh under his side and then the ropes tying him being loosened.