The Ring of Water - Chris Bradford [16]
Thwack!
Ronin nodded, his brow furrowing at the noise. ‘But they’re not all harmless. There’s a tale of one tanuki who killed a quarrelsome farmer’s wife –’ thwack! – ‘and cooked her up as soup –’ thwack! – ‘for her husband to eat –’ thwack!
The incessant hammering was making Ronin wince with every strike and Jack could see the samurai’s temper rising rapidly.
‘WHO’S MAKING THAT DREADFUL NOISE?’ demanded Ronin.
The manjū vendor poked his head out. ‘That’ll be the cooper next door,’ he informed them sheepishly.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
‘How many nails does one barrel need?’ complained Ronin, rubbing his temples.
‘I believe he’s making a coffin,’ explained the vendor.
‘Well, if he doesn’t stop that infernal banging, he’ll be making one for himself.’
At that moment, the hammering ceased and Ronin let out a slow relieved sigh. But a second later, the cooper resumed his work.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
‘Enough’s enough!’ Ronin exclaimed, snatching up his bottle and storming off.
‘Hold on!’ shouted Jack, grabbing their two remaining buns and stuffing them inside his tattered kimono. Staff in hand, he dashed after the enraged samurai.
9
ONE DEAD SAMURAI
Jack caught up with Ronin at the back of the cooper’s store, a small yard full of timber, half-finished barrels and an open coffin. The sound of hammering had been replaced by a deathly silence and at Ronin’s feet lay a blood-splattered corpse, the victim sliced open from neck to waist.
‘NO!’ exclaimed Jack, rushing up to the samurai.
Ronin shot him a defiant look.
‘You can’t just kill someone for making a noise –’
To Jack’s utter disgust, Ronin laughed heartily at this.
Jack realized he’d made the mistake of teaming up with a ruthless and unpredictable killer. No longer able to meet Ronin’s eye, Jack looked in pity at the dead man. He was dressed in a plain blue kimono, now cut into ribbons by a single vicious sword attack. His face was young, perhaps in his early twenties, but his sudden and violent end had stretched it taut into a pale death mask, the man’s mouth frozen in an agonized scream. Jack felt sickened to his stomach by Ronin’s cold-blooded murder.
‘How could you –?’
‘My sincere apologies,’ said a rasping voice. A withered man, all skin and bones like the leg of a chicken, tottered out of a hut. He presented Ronin with a small china cup. ‘The best in the entire province!’
The samurai knocked back its contents in one go and smacked his lips appreciatively. ‘Excellent saké, cooper. Apology accepted.’
The cooper grinned, revealing two front teeth that protruded like tombstones in an otherwise empty mouth. Jack stared at Ronin in disbelief and then at the body.
‘If that’s the cooper, then who’s this?’ said Jack, pointing to the corpse.
‘I’ve no idea,’ Ronin replied, smiling as he handed the cup back to the barrelmaker. ‘Some samurai or other.’
‘His name is – was – Manzo,’ revealed the cooper, chuckling darkly to himself. ‘It was an entertaining duel – while it lasted.’
‘Was it a test of skill or just a brawl?’ enquired Ronin.
‘As I hear it,’ the cooper sniffed, ‘the man was bragging about his ability to defeat anyone with his new swords. A samurai on his musha shugyō challenged him to prove his boast. The whole town came out yesterday to witness the duel.’
Jack now realized Ronin had been playing him along like a fish on a line. The samurai certainly had a morbid sense of humour. He wasn’t the murderer at all. The man had been killed by another samurai on his warrior pilgrimage.
‘Unless an idiot dies, he won’t be cured,’ Ronin muttered, giving the corpse a disdainful look. ‘It’s the hand that wields the sword, not the sword itself that matters.’
‘Never a truer word spoken,’ agreed the cooper. ‘But these were a very fine pair of swords. A daisho forged by the legendary Shizu no less!’
Jack’s ears pricked up at this. ‘What did these swords look like?’
The cooper thought for a moment. ‘Mmm … black sayas with gold, maybe pearl inlay … I can’t really remember. But I do recall their handles,