Chương 8: Book 1: Chapter 4 - Follow the Death [Part 2]

The man's eyes passed over the signed group. They lingered on Kuroda Genzō with satisfaction, on Mizuno Sōbei with recognition, on Sakurai Iori with mild curiosity, on the brothers with resignation, and on Shimon with wary interest.

"This will be sufficient for my needs," the commissioner concluded, his voice was pleasant but thin. The Za official bowed.

"As Master Hieda says. Six hired blades and your own guards. Enough for thieves and the carrion things."

"Enough to learn the shape of the trouble," Master Hieda replied.

"If there is more, the Za may send more. If there is less, then I have overpaid and the world remains as it is." He smiled showing perfect teeth as he chuckled, but nobody laughed. The important-looking man rose with assistance and settled into the traveling chair. The bearers lifted him with practiced grunts, and the guards arranged themselves around him. The Za official clapped his hands again.

"Go, then. Clear road, sharp eyes, honest proof. Return soon with your weapons tasting success." It seemed that there were still some problems with the biochip's translation aids. But that did not stop Shimon and he followed because everyone else did, and because you had to walk down the path you chose. They left the market by the eastern road, the market's noise: vendors shouting, chickens, men laughing too loudly, and the general noise of civilization fading slowly behind them.

Ahead stretched the road, packed and maintained with more care than Shimon expected. It was still mud and earth, but the drainage ditches were clear, stones had been laid in the worst places, and crude timber had been placed where the ground dipped. It followed the low rise of the land, avoiding the wettest fields, curving between the paddies and clusters of thatched houses. Master Hieda's chair moved at the center of the little procession.

The bearers carried him with a rolling rhythm, their legs thick from practice. His guards walked close, eyes scanning the roadside in a way that made Shimon think they were not merely decorative. The hired men trailed and flanked them as the path allowed. Kuroda Genzō walked near the front, saying nothing. Mizuno Sōbei walked near the center on the right and Sakurai Iori walked on the center left. The Kume brothers ranged constantly, forward and back, like enthusiastic hunting dogs.

Shimon kept to the side of the road and tried to look as serious as possible while the chip inside his head continued to update the map using the visual data being gleaned from his eyes. For a while they walked in silence broken only by sandals, creaking gear, the grunt of the chair bearers, and the ordinary sounds of country life. A farmer and his son stood aside to let them pass, bowing low to Master Hieda's chair and less low to everyone else. A woman carrying firewood watched them with open suspicion.

Children stared at swords until wise elders pulled them back. The party kept moving along the road in almost solemn silence. Then Sōbei clapped his hands softly.

"Well, if we march in silence, we will all begin thinking too much. Thinking too much before work is bad for the liver."

"Drinking is bad for the liver," remarked Sakurai Iori sardonically.

"Perhaps something to pass the time?" Sōbei suggested. Jirō brightened.

"Stories, then?"

"Stories," said Sōbei.

"But, first it is best to know the men beside you. A man's story tells you where he will run when the arrows start to fly."

"Forward," Tarō said at once.

"Liar," said Jirō.

"You fell in a ditch." Tarō snorted before he corrected his brother, "While running forward." Mizuno Sōbei laughed warmly.

"I will begin, then, since I have burdened you all with the suggestion. It is not much of a tale. Hardly worth speaking of." Which meant, Shimon thought, that he was absolutely going to speak of it.

"It was after my first battle," Sōbei said.

"I had thought, as young men do, that the battle itself would be the great terror. The shouting, the banners, the drums, the charge. I learned otherwise. Battle is confusion. The terror comes then. And once battle is done, there is the terror that comes after." Kuroda Genzō made a sound that might have been construed as agreement. The too friendly man continued, his tone modest and reflective.

"Our side held. Theirs did not. Still, I found myself separated from my unit near a line of low pines chasing them down. Three of the enemy soldiers had fled there, thinking to hide until night. Poor men. Frightened and wounded, perhaps. One still had a bow, though his hands shook too badly to restring it. The others had dropped their weapons in their panic." Somewhere a bird called out to a potential mate.

"They saw me and begged. One offered coins. Another said he had a mother. The third said nothing. He only looked at my sword and understood the world better than his companions." Sōbei smiled sadly at the memory, as if it had caused him great sorrow and also some satisfaction. However, Shimon's stomach tightened.

"I was very young. I thought mercy and foolishness were twins to be avoided. So I killed the archer first. The second tried to run, but he ran poorly. The third, the one who understood, picked up a stone. Brave man. I gave him a cleaner death for it." Nobody spoke for a few more steps, then Sōbei sighed. To Shimon's enhanced senses it felt practiced.

"I thought I had become a man that day. Years later, I learned I had merely become useful," the other man continued humbly. It was also a boast. Killed three after his first battle, he thought. Hunted down defeated soldiers and dressed it in clean philosophical-sounding words. The chip offered its late insight. Observed affect: controlled. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Facial-muscular consistency: high. Possible rehearsed anecdote.

Yes, Shimon commented in the halls of his mind. I noticed the sociopath, thank you. Genzō looked ahead.

"Men who beg can still stab." The deceitful man just bowed his head.

"Just so." Sakurai Iori said nothing. Shimon wondered how many people here would kill him for his pouch, his swords, or simply because he became inconvenient. The answer, unfortunately, was not zero. Jirō slapped his own cheeks lightly as if chasing away the mood.

"Too gloomy. Elder brother, tell the sweet bun story." Tarō groaned.

"Everyone knows the sweet bun story."

"Everyone knows it because it is good," his brother cajoled.

"Everyone knows it because you tell it whenever someone says the word fear." Tarō looked around at the group, judged that no one had the will to stop them, and brightened.

"Very well. There was once a man who said he feared nothing." Jirō hunched his shoulders and put on a pompous voice.

"Nothing! Not ghosts, not wolves, not debt collectors, not mother-in-law!"

"That last one is how you know he was lying," Tarō said. The brothers worked together with practiced ease. It became less a story than a little performance passed back and forth between them. They told of a gathering of men, each confessing what he feared most. One feared snakes. Another feared thunder. Another feared ghosts. Then came the man who claimed, in trembling secrecy, that what he feared most in all the world was manju. Sweet buns. Horrible, terrible, dreadful sweet buns.

Jirō played the frightened man so extravagantly that even Kuroda Genzō's mouth twitched.

"No! Spare me! Anything but these soft, sweet, fragrant horrors!" Tarō mimed throwing buns at him. Jirō caught invisible ones, devoured them, and moaned with theatrical suffering.

"Ah! I am undone! This bean paste is too terrible!" The punchline came as everyone expected. When the trick was revealed and the others demanded to know what he truly feared now, the man answered, with grave sincerity, that he had discovered an even greater terror. Tea. Tea, to wash down all the manju. The Kume brothers performed the ending together, one as the shameless trickster, the other as the outraged friend, and even men who had clearly heard the story a hundred times laughed. Sōbei laughed neatly.

Iori smiled. One of Master Hieda's guards made the mistake of chuckling and then pretended to cough. Genzō looked away, but not before Shimon saw amusement. However, the silliness was lost on Shimon who could not see the joke. Like the jokes in Shakespeare's play that apparently had entertained the masses once upon a time, centuries of developed humor separated him from the brothers. Shimon did not laugh and that made him look more like a brooding enigma His thoughts for a moment turned maudlin.

It had only been a day since the battlefield, the cave, the corpse, the forest, the market, the pickpocket. Time had become grotesque. He had killed men yesterday. He had eaten mystery meat today. Now he was walking down a road in an impossible Japan while two scruffy brothers performed ancient stand-up comedy that he did not find amusing in the slightest. Human beings, he decided, were disgusting resilient animals.

"That one failed to reach you, Ayanokouji-dono?" Sōbei asked. The honorific hit several ears and Shimon felt it land and disliked the courtesy. It was, like all of him, too polished. Too premeditated.

"Hard to fear sweet buns," Shimon replied carefully with a shrug.

"Ah," Jirō said, pointing at him.

"That means he has never had bad ones."

"Or never had enough good ones," Tarō said.

"That is the sadder thing."

"I had pudding last night," Shimon said before he could stop himself.

"Or perhaps the night before." The group looked at him. The chip, ever helpful, then translated pudding into something approximating foreign custard sweet.

"Foreign sweet," Shimon clarified.

"Soft. Egg. Sugar." Jirō looked fascinated. Tarō looked suspicious. And, Kuroda Genzō looked as if this confirmed several negative theories. But, it was Sakurai who rescued him.

"A western tale, perhaps? If Ayanokouji-dono has traveled, he may know one not worn thin by our ears," Iori said with a scholarly air. Shimon glanced at him, but the other man only looked back with calm, distant courtesy. A bridge, Shimon thought. He's making me less strange by giving me a place to put the strangeness. Unfortunately, this meant Shimon now needed to tell a story. His mind went blank in the way minds do when asked to provide entertainment at the drop of a hat. He knew stories.

Of course he knew stories. He had consumed entire databases worth of stories, films, games, manga, anime, books, forum posts, historical anecdotes, urban legends, creepypasta, badly translated myth, and online arguments that had mutated into folklore. The problem was selecting one that would not reveal too much. A story. A story. A story. Something old. Something foreign enough to explain the unfamiliarity. Something about death because apparently that was the theme.

"In a far western land," Shimon began, because that phrase seemed capable of carrying a lot of sins, "there was once a sickness that walked through towns like a lord collecting tax." The road quieted around him by a fraction. Good opening, he thought, surprised at himself.

"No one could see it. No one could strike it. A man would drink with friends in the evening and be buried by morning. A mother would kiss her child and carry death from one room to the next. Graves filled. Houses emptied. Men said Death itself walked the roads." The words came easier now. Not perfectly. He could feel the chip choosing terms, localizing images, smoothing strange corners.

He did not know whether he was telling a medieval exemplum, a half-remembered Chaucer tale, or a story his high school teacher had once made them read. It did not matter. The bones were strong enough for belief in the here and now.

"Three young men, drunk and angry, heard that their friend had died. They cursed Death. They swore they would find him and kill him. So they took their knives and went out searching." Jirō leaned in despite walking.

"They met an old farmer on the road. Bent back. White beard. The kind of old man who looks as if he has already been forgotten by the grave." Shimon paused for dramatic effect.

"The three demanded to know where Death was. The old farmer pointed toward a tree and said, 'I left him there, beneath the branches. If you are so eager, go find him.'" Shimon glanced ahead. Even Kuroda Genzō was listening now.

"So they went to the tree. They did not find a skeleton. They did not find a ghost. They found a bag of gold hidden in a hollow among the roots." The brothers made appreciative noises. The recently displaced man continued, "Enough gold to make poor men rich. Enough gold to make rich men powerful." Sakurai Iori smiled faintly.

"The oldest said they should wait until night before carrying it away, because men who suddenly carry gold in daylight invite trouble. One of them went to town to buy food and wine for the wait. On the way, he thought of the gold. Then he thought of sharing it. Then he bought poison." Sōbei's smile became very still.

"He poisoned the wine so that when his friends drank, they would die, and all the gold would be his. But while he was gone, the other two looked at the same bag of gold and performed the same arithmetic. Two shares were better than three. One share was better than two. But first, they agreed, they would kill the man coming back from town." The road seemed quieter now, though birds still called from the fields.

"So he returned with food and wine. His friends stabbed him beneath the tree. Then, thirsty from the work and pleased with their cleverness, they drank the poisoned wine." Shimon let the silence sit for a moment.

"All three died beneath the tree. So they found Death after all," he finished, concluding the tale.