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The Choshu Chronicles: Chapter Fourteen

by Omasu Oniwabanshi ::: 26.Jan.2005

“Kenshin! Saigo is here!”

Kenshin looked up from his meal of rice, miso soup, and grilled sweetfish as Shunme burst into the room serving as the dining commons for the Choshu bodyguards. Oshio and Hojo looked up with identical startled expressions before bursting into excited chatter.

Ignoring them, Shunme grinned at Kenshin. “Sorry to cut your lunch break short. Saigo came early.”

Leaving the food, Kenshin got up and followed Shunme into the entrance chamber of Komatsu’s house, taking his place behind Katsura and their host, Komatsu, with a sense of wonder.

Saigo and his entourage were just entering. The large man’s big dark eyes took in the room at a swift glance, then focused on Katsura. The smaller man bowed gravely as Saigo, flanked by five other Satsuma men, walked up.

“That’s Okubo” Shunme confided in a whisper, inclining his head at a tall samurai with piercing eyes who stood next to Saigo. “The younger one’s Yoshii, Saigo’s secretary. I don’t know who the other three are.”

Automatically, Kenshin had sized them up as opponents as they entered the room. The three samurai were hardened warriors. Satsuma had a reputation for breeding strong, if uncouth, fighters. All three had killers’ eyes. The youngest of the three, incongruously, was carrying what could only be a lute, a three stringed, long necked guitar, wrapped in a cloth.

Ryoma appeared and made his way around the Satsuma samurai in their formal kimonos, hakama, and haori jackets. In contrast, Ryoma looked as if he’d slept in his hakama and kimono, and his hair was as unruly as the last time Kenshin had seen him.

“Good! We’re all here!” Ryoma observed, rubbing his hands together and not seeming to notice the stiff tension between Saigo and Katsura.

“Perhaps we should retire to a more comfortable room?” suggested Komatsu.

“Patrol the garden.” Shunme whispered to Kenshin as Ryoma and the Satsuma men came past. “No one from the outside must know of this meeting.”

Komatsu led the men to a hallway that branched off into a succession of rooms. Noticing the youngest Satsuma samurai’s lute, he commented, “Ah good, a little music played in the next room is the perfect thing to discourage eavesdroppers.”

With a quick nod at Shunme, who turned to follow Katsura into the meeting chamber, Kenshin slipped out to the back garden and began his patrol.

Soon the strains of the lute came out across the small pond. It was a Satsuma folk song. Kenshin had been near Satsuma Headquarters often enough when he’d been in Kyoto before to recognize it. It was “A Cherry Blossom Keepsake,” a song about brotherhood.

The garden was empty. No one attempted to crawl over the back fence. The barren wisteria vines to his right and the pine trees beyond the pond were still, without so much as a breath of wind to disturb the cold winter air surrounding them. Guard duty was like that most of the time, being alert to the possibility of danger, rather than facing any actual danger.

The music rose and fell, growing louder or softer depending on what part of the garden Kenshin was in at the time. He wondered how the meeting was going. He wondered too about Komatsu’s comment about eavesdroppers. Did the man not even trust his own staff of servants?

That led his thoughts to Shunme’s comment about not trusting anyone. Kenshin tried to convince himself that it didn’t matter, yet he kept going back to it, like an itching wound that refused to heal. Was this why Kenshin was often relegated to patrolling the outside when meetings were going on inside? Did Shunme really think him untrustworthy?

Iizuka, the man Katsura and Kenshin trusted, had proved untrustworthy in the end, betraying Kenshin, and betraying Tomoe to him. Would all his supposed friendships turn out to be tainted by suspicion and mistrust? Kenshin gazed through the dark green branches of the pine trees and out over the back fence of Komatsu’s property.

The garden was still empty. He was alone.

The lute music stopped, so Kenshin edged back to the house. A soft murmur of voices came to him. Ryoma’s distinctive voice, exultant, boomed over the others.

Without needing Shunme to tell him, Kenshin knew. Choshu and Satsuma were now allies.

Nakamura, in Shunme’s words, would be ready to spit.

o-o-o

Ike Kurata came to see them off the next day.

He and Shunme spoke quietly together for a while. Kenshin moved to the other side of the room to watch Oshio and Hojo secure their small bundles of belongings. Oshio was having trouble with the knots. Remembering the last time Shunme and Kurata spoke together, the last thing Kenshin wanted to do was overhear their conversation.

“Kenshin.”

He’d sensed Kurata coming up behind him, and reluctantly turned at the sound of his own name. “Yes?”

Kurata smiled. “I have a message to you from Ryoma.”

“Ryoma?”

“Yes. He wanted you to know that his job offer is still open. If you ever get tired of bodyguarding with this guy.” Kurata jerked his head toward Shunme, who was now sitting on the floor teaching Oshio how to tie a perfect knot. “Come and see him.”

“Thank you, no.” Without having to think about it, Kenshin knew that he would never work with Kurata.

Kurata looked a bit startled at how quickly Kenshin said no.

“I’m committed to defeating the Bakufu.” Kenshin told him. “There is no room for anything else.” Better that than the true reason. Kenshin couldn’t trust the man. ‘You know where my loyalties lie’ he’d told Shunme, and with his answer Shunme made it clear that their loyalties were in different places.

Whether Shunme trusted Kenshin or not, they were both committed to serving Katsura and toppling the Bakufu. Who really knew what Kurata was loyal to?

Kurata nodded. “I understand, but promise me you’ll think about it. With this new alliance, the shogunate is bound to fall. We can talk again in Shimonoseki when I get back, OK?”

“Yes.” Kenshin outwardly agreed.

A hint of puzzlement in his eyes, Kurata smiled one last time and took his leave.

They left at dusk, walking through the streets toward the riverboat landing. Komatsu offered to send men with them for extra protection, but Katsura refused. It wouldn’t do to have Choshu and Satsuma men, speaking in their distinctive accents, seen walking together in friendship while their newly formed alliance was supposed to be a secret.

So they walked alone with Kenshin, his head concealed by a circular straw hat, taking the lead. They walked in silence, even Shunme, and when Kenshin held up his hand and signaled, they all melted back into the shadows under the eaves of a fabric warehouse.

Two Shinsengumi, in their blue and white coats, walked up to a noodle stand across the street. The vender nearly fell over himself getting their bowls quickly. One of them, an officer by his manner, with unbound hair slicked back and falling to his shoulders, wearing European style eyeglasses, tossed a few coins on the counter, and began eating.

The other man took his own bowl and moved to lean against a barrel at the corner of the stall.

The short alleyway where Kenshin and the others had taken shelter was a dead end. Their only way out was the street ahead where the Shinsengumi were. If they missed the riverboat, they’d have to wait at the landing, dangerously exposed.

The street remained empty save for the two Shinsengumi and the vendor. Kenshin flicked his sword’s tsuba, loosening it from the sheath.

“Not yet.”

Kenshin looked up as Katsura grabbed his arm, stopping him. Katsura was gazing intently across the street.

Glancing back, Kenshin too began to listen to what the two Shinsengumi were saying.

“Come on Kanryu.” chided the Shinsengumi with his hair pulled back in a ponytail. “Kyoto may not be Edo, but we’re pulling our own weight. The streets are filled with samurai come to join the shogun’s army and destroy Choshu.”

Kanryu swallowed the noodles he’d been shoveling into his mouth with chopsticks. “But what sort of samurai?” Kanryu sneered. “All they do is whine about wanting to go home, and not wanting to fight. What will the shogun think if all we send are malingerers?”

“I’m sure you exaggerate.” said the other stiffly, obviously not liking Kanryu’s tone.

“Oh I exaggerate, do I? Do you know why half the samurai don’t show up for morning drills? I’ll tell you. They are out buying souvenirs for their wives and families. They are not taking this war seriously.” Kanryu glared and continued to eat.

“That must be making the Kyoto venders happy.” observed the other glibly.

“Oh fine. The venders will be happy and the shogunate will be doomed. I suppose that’s your idea of a great success?” Kanryu huffed in irritation. “Don’t you realize that if we lose to Choshu the whole world will think the shogun is weak?”

The other Shinsengumi stared, unimpressed.

Kanryu slammed his now empty bowl down on the noodle vender’s counter, and waved his arms. “Do you never think about consequences? If this army is not committed to completely destroying Choshu, it won’t.”

“We outnumber them.” the other man said smugly.

“Numbers don’t matter if morale isn’t there, don’t you understand?” He grabbed the bowl out of his companion’s hand and stuck it on the counter top. “That is why I’m the strategist and you’re just a squad member. Now come on. Kondo is waiting for us.”

Kanryu grabbed the other by the sleeve and pulled him away from the noodle stall. “But I wasn’t finished with my noodles yet.” the man protested as he went.

“Tough. Besides, they were MY noodles since I paid for them.”

The immediate threat gone, Kenshin glanced back up at Katsura. His leader was smiling wolfishly. He stepped boldly into the street.

“Let’s go.” he said, and Kenshin hurried to get ahead of him to take the lead.

He had to keep walking fast to keep ahead of the Choshu loyalist, and as he did he heard Katsura humming, very faintly, the tune to “A Cherry Blossom Keepsake.”

o-o-o

They had only one more block to go to get to the Takasegawa canal, the same canal they’d used to travel through Kyoto to reach Satsuma headquarters when they’d first arrived in the city.

In front of them and slightly to the right past the canal rose Mount Higashi, blanketed in snow. Lower down the roofs of temples clustered at the foot of the Higashiyama mountain range, nestled in among trees dusted with snow as well.

They made it to the landing by the Shijo Bridge without further incident, and stepped off the stone landing into the flat-bottomed riverboat waiting for them.

Katsura immediately stepped under the covered area in the center of the boat and sat beneath its pitched roof. Shunme followed and pulled down the canvas window coverings. Oshio and Hojo walked awkwardly, crouching, to the back of the boat to sit by the boatman, who held the long wooden handle of the rudder that protruded off the squared edge of the stern.

Kenshin and Shunme made their way forward and sat with their backs against the front wall of the covered cabin, if one could call the small hut-like structure amidships a cabin.

Without speaking, the boatman’s mate pushed off and began poling the vessel down stream.

It was quiet on the water. Over the tiled roofs of the houses and buildings lining the path by the canal, the Higashiyama range rose silently, its cap of white glistening in the early evening gloom.

From time to time patches of noise and bustle from the streets leading onto the canal path came to them across the water. At times the boat slid under a bridge, which always caused Kenshin to tense up, especially when there were people standing near the railings or walking across overhead. They were all simply workmen on their way home, or couples traveling to friends’ homes, their breath visible as they spoke of things they’d seen or done or concerns about their lives. It was all very normal and calm. Until the last bridge.

Kenshin didn’t need Shunme’s whispered curse to alert him. He’d already seen two lone Shinsengumi leaning against the bridge’s railing and glaring down at a boatman with several large baskets of fish smelling up his small barge.

They seemed to be questioning the man, who was leaning hard on his pole, stuck on the bottom of the canal, to keep the boat from passing under the bridge as he answered them.

Kenshin came forward on one knee and flicked his tsuba to loosen his sword from the sheath, but paused when Shunme’s hand came down on his arm.

Surprised, he glanced at the older samurai, who shook his head deliberately, then jerked his chin toward the covered hut in the middle of the boat.

Getting the message, Kenshin pushed his tsuba back down against the mouth of the sheath, and immediately crawled back around to the opening in the side of the hut-like structure and went inside.

As he passed the threshold, he heard Shunme whisper to Oshio and Hojo, “Now boys, like we planned.”

Katsura glanced at Kenshin sharply as he sat across from him in the enclosed space.

“There’s shinsengumi on the bridge ahead.” Kenshin whispered softly.

“Ah.” Katsura’s eyes glittered in the darkened hut, and Kenshin could sense rather than see the older man gather himself in preparation for the fight, should it come, then deliberately relax his muscles when he remembered that he had others to protect him now.

Unexpectedly, incongruously, the sound of a cork being pulled came, and the sweet, pungent scent of sake wafted through the hut.

Kenshin’s eyes narrowed.

Then came Shunme’s voice, in an overly thick assumed Satsuma accent, but definitely Shunme, warbling the words to “A Cherry Blossom Keepsake” at the top of his lungs. The song grew louder as he made his way clumsily past the hut to fall in a noisy clatter at the stern end of the boat.

That was when Hojo and Oshio’s voice joined in, also in thick Satsuma accents. Coming to the end of the first verse, they next switched to a really bawdy Satsuma drinking song, the words of which made Kenshin glad for the darkness, so that Katsura wouldn’t see him blush.

A shout, interrupted by another voice, came from almost directly overhead.

“Leave them alone, it’s just a bunch of those Satsuma samurai out getting drunk.” Contempt obvious in the man’s tone, the Shinsengumi soldier went on derisively. “If we’re lucky maybe they’ll fall into the canal and sober up.”

Shunme, Oshio, and Hojo, who had apparently been talking to enough Satsuma men during their stay at Komatsu’s house to fake a passable Satsuma accent, continued their song to its bitter end as the boat made its way down the canal, away from the bridge.

Once he knew they were well past, Kenshin stopped peering back up at the roof of the hut as if he could still see the bridge through its wooden planks, and turned back to Katsura.

He was shaking. Kenshin was nonplussed for a moment until he realized Katsura was laughing. He stared in astonishment.

Shunme lifted a shade and poked his head in under it. “Everything alright in here?”

“Yes,” said Katsura in a slightly strangled tone. “Good work, Shunme.”

A flash of white teeth revealed Shunme’s grin as he pulled back and dropped the shade.

“Will you excuse me, Katsura?” asked Kenshin politely.

Katsura nodded and Kenshin crawled out of the hut and back to his place against the structure’s wall in the prow end of the boat.

As he settled his shoulder blades against the wall, he glanced over at Shunme who was already seated and staring at the black waters of the canal in front of them. Sensing Kenshin’s look, Shunme turned his head and smiled.

“When did you…?” began Kenshin.

“Come up with this plan?” finished Shunme. “Back at Komatsu’s house. I would have told you about it too, but somehow I just couldn’t picture you singing. You don’t sing, do you?”

“No.” Singing hadn’t been something Master Hiko Seijiro encouraged during his years of training.

“Didn’t think so.” said Shunme, settling his back more comfortably against the wall. “I just couldn’t imagine you belting out a song in a Satsuma accent, so I decided not to even ask. Though I think that with my coaching, Oshio and Hojo did a pretty good job. Maybe we can even go on the stage as performers after the war is over.” Shunme gave a snort of laughter, swallowing his belly laugh so he wouldn’t make noise. “What do you think of my workmanship?” he asked, nodding back toward the stern end of the ship.

“They seemed…believable as Satsuma.” answered Kenshin, and wrenched his eyes away from Shunme to stare out at the water.

They seemed. The words repeated themselves in Kenshin’s mind. Oshio and Hojo had seemed something other than they were. Kenshin himself couldn’t do that, and Shunme knew he couldn’t, which must be why he hadn’t asked him.

Shunme was staring at him. Kenshin could feel it, and kept his eyes forward and his face an emotionless mask.

When the older samurai’s words came softly, it was a surprise. “You’re too honest for such foolishness.” Shunme told him. “That’s the reason why I didn’t tell you about the plan. Besides, I hoped we wouldn’t have to sing. My wife tells me I can’t carry a tune with both hands.”

Kenshin looked back at Shunme questioningly, but the samurai merely smiled and crawled back to join Katsura in the covered hut.

The boat moved on quietly down the canal toward Osaka where another boat waited to take them home to Choshu and the coming battle.