Then they might engage in a little more than bear hunting, Shichio thought. If Nene caught a stray arrow in the fracas, it would only serve her right for colluding with a known criminal.
No. Shichio would not be so lucky. Or rather, Nene would not be so naive as to place herself in harm’s way, not while a host of Shichio’s archers lay within bowshot. She would take shelter in the teahouse, surrounded by a ring of armored guards. She might even place troops of her own atop the rock shelf, to ensure Shichio’s good behavior. It did not matter. Shichio would bring bodyguards of his own, in case she intended to play him false. But he would go. He knew he would never have a clearer shot at that damnable boy.
“When?” he said.
“My lady already rides for Ashitaka. She departed Kyoto some days ago. When I find the Bear Cub, I will send word to her, and when I hear back—”
“How? How, damn you, how can you find this boy when all of my hunters cannot?”
“Heh. I just sing his name.” Nezumi gave Shichio a gleefully guilty grin. “Don’t forget, Lord Kumanai, the boy wants me to find him. He’s got spies of his own, thanks to that wife of his. Put the right words in the right ears and sooner or later he’ll come calling.”
“What then?”
“Then I’ll send word to you, and to Lady Nene, and we’ll all gather at Obyo Falls. The Bear Cub will never know what hit him.”
And neither will Nene, Shichio thought. The woman knew him too well: if this was a trap, the Bear Cub was juicy bait. Shichio could not pass it up. But neither would he walk in blindly. He harbored no illusions: he was bait himself. Bear bait. He was the only prize that would draw out the Bear Cub. Nene intended to use Shichio and Daigoro as praying mantises, captured and tossed into a wicker cage. They were supposed to fight for her amusement.
So be it. The surviving mantis could still bite the fingers holding the cage. Shichio would not forgo his clearest shot at the Bear Cub, but if he must walk into this trap, he would not go unprepared. Kyoto was a long way from Ashitaka. Shichio would arrive first, and set his own traps in place.
“Be gone,” he told Nezumi. “And be sure to thank your mistress for all of her lovely gifts.”
He did not bother to see his guest to the door. He had too much planning to do.
38
“I know you,” Daigoro told the woman threatening him with the knife.
She was a skeletal hag with skin like old leather. Her thick, yellowed fingernails matched her sharp, yellowed teeth. The knife quivered in her bony hand, but if she dropped it, she had seven more tucked into her belt. Not to mention the seven men with her, all of them armed to the hilt.
They had chosen their battleground well. It was late in the hour of the tiger, not long before sunrise, when Daigoro was still groggy. Katsushima insisted that they always set out before first light. He and Daigoro were safest when they were on the move, and Shichio’s bear hunters were mercenaries—“a shiftless breed, the lot of them,” according to Katsushima. “Never up before dawn. Even the ronin among them lose their soldier’s discipline. And why shouldn’t they? There’s no sergeant to whip them if they decide to have a lie-in.”
Not this bunch. They must have stalked Daigoro to the bordello where he and Katsushima had spent the night. Now, just as Daigoro was saddling his mare, the scrawny harridan and her pack had formed a semicircle at the mouth of the bordello’s stable. The only way out was to cut a path through them—no trouble at all, if only they were armed with knives like their ringleader. Daigoro and Katsushima had faced numbers far worse than four to one. But the other seven were archers, with seven arrows already drawn back to their ears. Daigoro could hear their bowstrings creak.
“You’re Whalebelly’s woman,” he said.
“Who?” She laughed—an awful hacking sound—when Daigoro’s meaning struck her. “Whalebelly! That name fits him as well as any. Well, Whale Carcass now, thanks to you.”
“Daigoro, who is this creature?” Katsushima asked. Muffled by his words, his katana clicked as he loosened it in its scabbard.
“A yamabushi I met near Fuji-no-tenka. One who takes her coin from Shichio now, unless I miss my guess.”