when I try to reach for it.” He looked hopefully at Katsushima, who took a half step back but did not lower his sword. Gingerly plucking a little scroll from the pocket in his sleeve, he said, “Lady Nene intends to meet you in the teahouse. It is a very old place, perfectly secure—except for one thing. There is a rocky shelf, hidden from below by all the greenery growing in the spray of the falls. It overlooks the teahouse and it’s far larger than anyone would suspect. Large enough for Shichio to hide a platoon of archers up there, waiting for you.”
Daigoro looked at Nezumi’s scroll for a moment, wondering if he should touch it. A year ago he would have taken it without hesitation. That was before he’d felt the sting of a shuriken laced with contact poison, or had poisoned tea poured on his face by an assassin dressed as a priest. “Open it,” he said, and only after he’d seen Nezumi handle every part of the scroll did he consent to holding it himself.
“Cagey bastard, aren’t you? Heh heh. I like that.” Nezumi pointed at the scroll. “I gave Shichio something similar, and I told him everything I’m telling you. But I left one thing out: that rock shelf isn’t safe. It’s halfway up the cliff, but you can’t climb any higher from there. The rock’s too brittle, and there’s too much spray from the falls. But if a fellow were to come down the long way, from higher up on the mountain, he could walk right to the edge of that cliff and no one on the shelf would ever hear him coming. If he were a sneaky fellow like you, he might bring some of those Mongol grenades with him, assuming he knew someone resourceful enough to get his hands on them. Have you ever seen one of those?”
“No.”
“They make an awful mess, believe you me. That gunpowder is the reason Emperor Go-Uda prayed for the kamikaze to sink the fleets of Kublai Khan. Wicked witchcraft, that stuff. Louder than thunder and it stinks like hellfire, but it gets the job done.”
Daigoro knew that well enough. He’d taken a musket ball in the chest in the Battle of the Green Cliff. If not for his Sora breastplate, it would have burst his heart like a melon. And he’d read the stories of the Mongol invasions, of course. Kublai Khan was said to have deployed great iron wheels taller than a horse, full of black powder, spewing destruction everywhere they rolled. Daigoro wasn’t sure how much of that to believe, but he’d heard of the hand-held variety too. Globes of ceramic or iron, it was said, packed full of fire and death. They were the very embodiment of dishonor, capable of killing without the slightest need for discipline, strength, or skill.
He said as much. “Aren’t you a choosy one?” Nezumi replied. “Heh heh. Go ahead, walk right up to the teahouse and announce yourself at the door. See how far your honor gets you then.”
I may have to, Daigoro thought. If Nezumi instructed Shichio to hide on this unseen ledge, then that was the one place Shichio wouldn’t be. He didn’t have it in him to trust people, least of all Nene’s own servant. He wouldn’t place himself in a predictable position, and he certainly wouldn’t box himself in. Looking at Nezumi’s map, Daigoro saw that the teahouse itself was the only spot that offered an escape route back out of the valley. That was where Shichio would be. But that ledge would still be crawling with assassins.
“These Mongol grenades,” he said reluctantly, “I don’t suppose you happen to know anyone who’s selling them.”
“Clever boy. I have a crate of them for you, and the price is low: just one look at whatever it is you carry for my lady.”
“No. Tell her to meet me at the Sora compound in Izu. She can see it there.”
Nezumi huffed and threw his hands up. “No. She rides for Obyo Falls even as we speak.”
“Then she won’t have to ride much farther to reach the Soras. I will meet her there, nowhere else.”
He returned Nezumi’s defiant stare with one of his own. Daigoro had no intention of walking into a trap, and although he knew he and Lady Nene had a common enemy, there was a limit to his trust. Besides, he had to make good on his word to Lord Sora. Yasuda Kenbei and that she-wolf Azami