David Mitchell - The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

He pours tea for Uzaemon, and both men light their pipes.

‘The sea-fog was thick the next morning, and after a mile I struck off east, circling Isahaya from the north, around to the Ariake Sea Road. Better to enter Kyôga Domain, I reckoned, without the guards at the gate seeing my face. I walked along half the morning, passing through several villages with my hood down, until I found myself at the noticeboard of the village of Kurozane. Crows were at work unpicking a crucified woman. It stank! Seawards, the fog was dividing itself between weak sky and brown mudflats. Three old mussel-gatherers were resting on a rock. I asked them what any traveller would: how far to Konagai, the next village along? One said four miles, the second said less, the third said further; only the last had ever been, and that was thirty years ago. I made no mention of Otane the herbalist, but asked about the crucified woman, and they told me she’d been beaten most nights for three years by her husband, and had celebrated the New Year by opening his head with a hammer. The Lord Abbot’s Magistrate had ordered the Executioner to behead her cleanly, which gave me a chance to ask whether Lord Abbot Enomoto was a fair master. Perhaps they didn’t trust a stranger with an alien accent, but they all agreed they’d been born here as rewards for good deeds in previous lives. The Lord of Hizen, one pointed out, stole one farmer’s son in eight for military duties and bled his villagers white to keep his family in Edo in luxury. In contrast, the Lord of Kyôga imposed the rice tax only when the harvest was good, ordered a supply of food and oil for the shrine on Mount Shiranui, and required no more than three guards for the Mekura Gorge gate. In return, the Shrine guarantees fertile streams for the rice paddies, a bay teeming with eels and baskets full of seaweed. I wondered how much rice the Shrine ate in a year. Fifty koku, they said, or enough for fifty men.’

Fifty men! Uzaemon is dismayed. We need an army of mercenaries.

‘After Kurozane,’ Shuzai shows no undue concern, ‘the road passes a smart-looking inn, the Harubayashi, as in “spring bamboo”. A short distance on, an uphill track turns off the coast road and leads up to the mouth of Mekura Gorge. The trail up the mountain is well maintained, but it took me half the day. The guards at the checkpoint don’t expect intruders, that much was clear – one well-placed sentinel would have seen me coming – but…’ Shuzai wrinkles his mouth to indicate an easy climb. ‘The gatehouse seals a narrow mouth of the gorge, but you’d not need ten years of ninja training to climb up around it, which was what I did. Higher up, patches of snow and ice appeared, and pine and cedar muscled out the lowland trees. The track climbs a couple more hours to a high bridge over the river; a stone marker names the place Todoroki. Not long after, there’s a long, steep corridor of torî gates where I left the path and climbed up through a pine-forest. I came to the lip of an outcrop midway up Bare Peak, and this drawing,’ Shuzai removes a square of paper hidden in a folded book, ‘is based on the sketches I made on the spot.’

Uzaemon surveys Orito’s prison for the first time.

Shuzai empties dead ash from his pipe. ‘The Shrine sits in this triangular hollow between Bare Peak above, and those two lesser ridges. My guess is that a castle from the Age of Warring States once sat on the site claimed by Enomoto’s ancestor in the amulet pedlar’s tale – note these defensive walls and the dry moat. You’d need twenty men and a battering ram to force those gates, too. But don’t be disheartened: any wall is only as strong as the men defending it, and a child with a grappling hook would be over in a minute. Nor is there any chance of getting lost once we’re inside. Now this’ – Shuzai points his bowstring-calloused forefinger – ‘is the House of Sisters.’

Unguardedly, Uzaemon asks, ‘Did you see her?’

Shuzai shakes his head. ‘I was too far away. The remaining daylight I spent searching for ways down from Bare Peak other than the Mekura Gorge, but there are none: this north-east ridge hides a drop of several hundred feet; and to the north-west, the forest is so dense you’d need four hands and a tail to make any headway. At dusk, I headed back down the gorge and reached the Halfway Gate just as the moon rose. I climbed over a bluff to the lower path, reached the mouth of Mekura Gorge, crossed the rice terraces behind Kurozane, and found a fishing-boat to sleep under on the road to Isahaya. It was damp and cold, but I didn’t want witnesses coming to share a fire. I returned to Nagasaki by the following evening, but let three days pass before contacting you to hide the link between my absence and your visit. It is safest to assume that your servant is in Enomoto’s pay.’

‘Yohei has been my servant since the Ogawa family adopted me.’

‘What better spy,’ Shuzai shrugs, ‘than one above suspicion?’

Uzaemon’s cold feels worse by the minute. ‘Do you have solid reason to doubt Yohei?’

‘None at all, but all daimyo retain informers in neighbouring domains; and these informers acquire understandings with major families’ servants. Your father is one of only four Interpreters of the First Rank on Dejima: the Ogawas are not people of no importance. To spirit away a daimyo’s favourite is to enter a dangerous world, Uzaemon. To survive, you must doubt Yohei, doubt your friends and doubt strangers. Knowing all this, the question is: are you still intent on liberating her?’

‘More than ever, but’ – Uzaemon looks at the map – ‘can it be done?’

‘Given careful planning, given money to hire the right men, yes.’

‘How much money and how many men?’

‘Less than you’d suppose, is the good news: the fifty koku the seaweed gatherers talked about sounds daunting, but a fair portion of that fifty is eaten by Enomoto’s entourage. What’s more, that building’ – Shuzai points to the lower right corner – ‘is the refectory, and when it emptied after dinner, I counted just thirty-three heads. The women I discount. The masters will be past their prime, which leaves at most two dozen able-bodied acolytes. In Chinese legends, monks may shatter rocks with their bare hands, but the goslings of Shiranui are hatched from much frailer eggs. There was no archery range in the shrine, no barracks for lay-guards, and no evidence of martial training. Five excellent swordsmen, in my opinion, could rescue Miss Aibagawa. My policy of double-insurance calls for ten swords, in addition to yours and mine.’

‘What if Lord Enomoto and his men appear before we attack?’

‘We postpone our venture, disperse and hide in Saga until he leaves.’

Smoke from the struggling fire tastes of salt and bitterness.

‘You’ll have considered,’ Shuzai raises a delicate point, ‘that to return to Nagasaki with Miss Aibagawa would be… would be…’

‘Tantamount to suicide. Yes, I have considered little else this last week. I shall -’ Uzaemon sneezes and coughs ‘- I shall abandon my life here, accompany her to wherever she wishes to go and help her until she orders me to leave. A day, or my lifetime, whichever she chooses.’

The swordsman frowns, nods, and watches his friend and student.

Out in the street, dogs run past, barking murderously.

‘I worry,’ admits Uzaemon, ‘about you being linked to this raid.’

‘Oh, I assume the worst. I, too, shall move on.’

‘You are sacrificing your life in Nagasaki in order to help me?’

‘I prefer to blame Nagasaki ’s particularly menacing creditors.’