Forbidden in Jade

By Lang Kevin

A samurai is bound by the code of bushido.
A woman-hater prowls the streets in search of victims to torment.
A young girl is sold to a brothel for a pittance.
By a strange twist of fate, their lives are intertwined.
Shuntaro was born a sociopath. His only pleasure is other people's suffering. When he manages to slide his way into power, it is only

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palace Park Press
• Release date: Dec 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781909121874

Book preview

PART 1: 1594

CHAPTER 1

Fushimi Castle, near Kyoto

Some say that the darkest and coldest part of the night is just before dawn. It is also the time when great armies are susceptible to attack. Sleep is usually at its deepest, sentries are fatigued and raiders can escape in the morning light.

Concealed by the forest one hundred paces from Fushimi Castle, a group of men were intently watching the movements of a handful of fully armoured samurai who were patrolling the battlements.

‘It’s time,’ the leader whispered to a young man.

‘Hai,’ Hayato softly replied.

Reaching for his pocket, Hayato pulled out a strange-looking object. He pressed the dog’s paw to his lips and kissed it before putting it swiftly back. He had every faith that his talisman would keep him and his clan invisible to the enemy.

Hayato slowly got to his feet from his squatting position. He, like the others, was dressed head to foot in dark blue. Scarves covered their faces, making it hard to distinguish one from the other. All were short and slender, with overdeveloped forearms and wrists. Adhering to a strict diet kept their weight to a minimum. Their bodies were built to climb walls and cling to rooftops.

‘Go!’ the leader said.

Crossing through the undergrowth, the others followed Hayato. With grappling hooks and ropes, the group of men expertly scaled the castle battlements undetected. Staying in the shadows, the intruders carefully crept along wall tops, up and down stone stairways, hoping to catch the sentries napping. The stifling humidity, even in the early hours, was draining. The samurai on guard, smelling of sweat, found it difficult to stay vigilant.

In the moonlight, the intruders caught sight of a lone man standing at his post and staring out into the darkness.

The leader made a hand signal.

While the rest stayed motionless, Hayato slowly pulled out a knife and stayed close to the wall. He moved in for the kill. The samurai was taken from behind. Hayato wrapped one of his hands around his victim’s mouth and pulled his chin up and back while his other hand drew the blade slowly across the man’s throat, slashing it from ear to ear.

Stepping over the twitching body, eight dark shapes moved silently towards the five-storey keep.

When they reached the tower, the leader stopped and sniffed. He smelt blood. Hayato was covered in it. The young man was too much of a liability to go any further. ‘Search the battlements for other samurai,’ the leader said calmly.

‘Hai.’ Hayato bowed and watched his clansmen climb up to a small window. It was skilfully prised open and, one by one, they slithered through. Hayato pivoted away and scanned the battlements, then went in search of sentries.

Inside the keep, the team of ninja climbed the narrow flight of stairs. A few sleepy samurai guards were taken by surprise and garrotted. The plan went smoothly until they reached the corridor outside the bedchamber. Although dry floorboards naturally groan under pressure, these floors were designed to sound a warning.

‘Uguisubari.’ Nightingale floors. The leader cursed.

The sound of a faint creak snapped the warlord from his sleep. The fifty-seven-year-old man sat up nervously on his mattress. Instinctively, he reached for his scabbard, unsheathed his sword and slowly got to his feet. The man was overly suspicious, and he had good reason to be. These were dangerous times. In feudal Japan, fragile truces were habitually broken, turning allies into potent enemies. No one could be trusted. Paranoid, the warlord was convinced that everybody was busily scheming behind his back.

Hideyoshi Toyotomi was ruthless and cunning. He was a man who was blessed with neither good looks nor tall stature. His great army had slaughtered thousands upon thousands of rival samurai during his campaign to seize control of Japan. Once in power, he tightened his grip, imposing a rigid class structure, restricting travel and taking weapons away from peasants and merchants. His despotic plans didn’t end there. He had set his sights on conquering both China and Korea as well.

Toyotomi crossed the large, tatami-mat room and placed his ear against the doorframe. Listening intently, he heard footsteps somewhere outside. Then silence. His heart began to race.

Spinning around, he strode nimbly across the room to a square window and pulled open the wooden shutters. Looking into courtyard, he saw that the sentry posts were all unmanned.

He moved across to the wall. Groping in the darkness, his fumbling fingers struggled to find the hidden lever. After a few nervous seconds, a door finally swivelled open. He escaped into a hidden chamber.

A moment later, noiselessly, the paper screen door to the bedchamber was slid open. After carefully peering into the dimly lit room, one of the ninja took a cautious step forward. His movements were precise but relaxed. He trod silently, scanned constantly and then gave a hand signal. Half a dozen sure-footed masked ninja followed. The last man in closed the door quietly.

They wore no armour. Samurai carried their swords on their hips, but the ninja had theirs strapped to their backs.

The vast room appeared to be empty, yet a distinctive sour, musky odour hung in the night air. The men moved silently to the wooden pillow and thick quilted mat. One of the assassins quietly sank down onto his haunches and sniffed the silk blanket while his free hand pressed down on the mat, feeling the warmth.

‘He’s here,’ the leader whispered. ‘Search the corridors and other rooms.’

The group of men immediately obeyed and disappeared into the darkness.

Alone, a small, muscular man scanned the large, opulently furnished room. A lamp in the corner illuminated the rare and extravagant artefacts that decorated every corner. It was a beautiful room. No, it was more than that. It was exquisite. Three walls were ostentatiously covered with gold leaf and the fourth bore an intricate wall carving. The place had an aura of power.

Getting quietly to his feet, the ninja padded over to the wood-carved relief of pine trees, mythical dragons and hawks. He began to sniff, catching a faint whiff of body odour. The warlord was close.

Lightly, the ninja swept his fingers over the yew panel: once, twice and finally a third time. His hand stopped, hovering over a dragon’s wooden claw. Something wasn’t quite right.

Pressing, pulling and twisting, the ninja worked the lever until a door finally glided open. As he stared into the dark passageway, he didn’t see, or expect, the slab of dark oak embedded with steel rivets that came swinging at his head.

Blood streamed from his nose. Semi-conscious, the assassin, now flat on his back, saw the face of Hideyoshi Toyotomi staring down at him, holding the club above his head, ready to strike a second time.

Very few knew the assassin’s face, yet most knew his name. It was Kirigakure Saizo – Hidden Mist – and his attempt to assassinate the most powerful man in all of Japan had just failed, dismally.

Hidden Mist unobtrusively reached into his jacket and pulled out a small bottle of poison. He pressed it to his lips, about to swallow, but before he could the oak club smashed him across the head. The bottle was dropped. He fell into unconsciousness.

Those who committed serious crimes in Toyotomi’s fiefdom – crimes such as murder or arson – faced severe punishments. They were boiled alive, burnt at the stake, crucified, decapitated or sawn in half with serrated bamboo.

The fate awaiting Hidden Mist would be even worse.

CHAPTER 2

Hidden Mist opened his eyes and began to focus. It was a grim place. In the light of day it would send shivers down the spines of the convicted, but in the pre-dawn darkness it was even worse. A couple of torches hung from the bloodstained walls, casting a long, distorted shadow off a suspended butcher’s hook. Flames that licked the man-sized cauldron appeared ever more ferocious and threatening. It was here that every type of imaginable torture could, and did, happen.

As he lay on the dirt floor, still dazed and in intense pain, Hidden Mist pondered the dire situation. Stale, sickly sweat clung to his armpits. He knew he faced hours, maybe days, of unspeakable brutality.

Like every ninja, he had been taught from an early age that clan secrecy was paramount. It must never be compromised. He would follow the ninja code at any cost, even if it meant dislocating his own jaw.

Ninjutsu meant the ‘art of stealth’, but also the ‘art of endurance’. As a child he had been taught that the pictogram for the ‘nin’ in ‘ninja’ was a blade over the heart. It was a constant reminder that it was better to kill yourself than reveal the clan’s secrets.

It wasn’t the thought of the excruciating pain that prevented Hidden Mist from carrying out such a barbaric act of self-torture. For now, his mouth had its uses. Intimidate and infuriate, he thought.

Hidden Mist paused, taking a few minutes to watch the edge of the bright red dawn sun break the darkness. He muttered a chant. Then he took a deep breath and looked at the three scruffy guards. The verbal onslaught began.

‘My dog smells better than you. And its carcass has been putrefying in the humidity for a week.’

No response.

Turning his head slowly, Hidden Mist scanned the place and began to sniff. A foul smell of dried blood and faeces suffused the castle’s dark, dank execution courtyard. Whether it was the excrement of humans or animals, he didn’t know or care. He had to focus on his one task: getting his throat slit. The quicker the better. It would be far preferable to the long drawn-out death he envisaged. He caught sight of some razor-sharp bamboo shafts, which he knew only too well were designed to be inserted under fingernails and into orifices.

‘You reek!’ Hidden Mist yelled. ‘I thought only pigs wallowed in their own shit.’

Again silence.

He cursed under his breath, wishing he hadn’t dropped the potent, bitter poison. Impervious to the cockroaches and rats encircling him, he racked his brain, trying to think of invidious slurs.

The three guards looked irritably towards the ninja. They were often taunted by the townspeople, even spat at, but this was the first time a prisoner had ridiculed them so openly.

‘Your stench is unbearable. Do you have a dead rat up your arse?’ Hidden Mist again mocked.

The insults were slowly getting under the skin of the guards, as he had anticipated.

Studying the guards meticulously, he soaked up all the details he could: scruffy, no swords, rags for clothes, close-cropped hair and with small circular tattoos on their forearms – they were clearly untouchables.

‘What are you looking at?’ a guard eventually shouted in frustration.

‘Filthy eta,’ Hidden Mist growled.

‘Shut your mouth.’

Hidden Mist gloated. ‘No wonder you imbeciles are intellectually stunted, with all that inbreeding going on in the slums.’ He let out a condescending laugh. ‘Did you have fun with your mothers last night . . . or your sisters?’

Playing with people’s minds was a trademark ninja strategy. Hidden Mist knew everything there was to be known about the eta. His clan, the Momochi, had to pose as people from all walks of life in order to gather information and carry out assassinations. They infiltrated towns and strongholds disguised as anybody from priests to puppeteers. The guise of an eta was a good one. The eta were left alone. They were ignored by all, despised by all and stuck at the very bottom of Japan’s rigid caste system. At the top was the god-like Emperor and below him were the samurai. Next came the farmers, artisans and merchants, and then finally the outcasts. Even the outcasts were divided into classes. And the lowest of the low were the eta: the untouchables. The filth. Regarded by the rest of society as no better than animals.

‘I heard you’re not allowed to own property or legally marry. Is that true, you filthy, polluted beasts?’

The older-looking guard, who had been stoically ignoring the taunts, had finally had enough. From his belt, he pulled out a bamboo handsaw and flashed it at the ninja. ‘Any more crudeness from your mouth and I’ll saw a few fingertips off.’

‘Kutabare.’ Go to hell.

In the blink of an eye, Hidden Mist removed his footwear and hurled it at the guards. As he did so, he surreptitiously retrieved a small marble-sized ball of a soft brown substance from under the cotton sole of his shoe. The ball was made from the dried milky sap of the opium poppy. He counted on the potent drug to alleviate some of the pain that was in store for him.

Swallowing the sticky, textured substance, Hidden Mist had to fight the urge to vomit as the extreme bitter tang hit the back of his throat. Inhaling and exhaling deeply, he closed his bruised, puffy eyes. Bending his head slightly forward, he began to pray.

It wasn’t a moment too soon.

The guards huddled in a small circle, said a few quick words, and headed purposefully in his direction. ‘Make him stand,’ the senior guard shouted.

A stiff boot to the ribs was followed by two guards seizing Hidden Mist roughly and pulling him to his feet. Resistance was futile, but he wasn’t going to make it easy for them.

‘Get your hands off me!’

Hidden Mist lashed out at two pairs of hands. The guards had a hard time trying to restrain him. They jerked his right arm up behind his back. He heard a pop and felt a sharp pain as it was wrenched behind him.

The senior guard edged forward, looking hatefully into his bloodshot eyes. ‘I’ve heard about the ninja. The rumour is that you are half demon-born. Is that true?’

‘Demon?’ Hidden Mist shouted. ‘Do you have any more clever, questions, you stinking, filthy imbecile?’

‘Mouthing off doesn’t bother me one bit,’ the scruffy guard said flatly and gave a mocking grin, revealing a couple of missing teeth, the rest jagged. Clenching his jaw and stiffening his neck muscles, he lunged forward. His forehead smashed hard, shattering Hidden Mist’s nose.

Hidden Mist howled. Searing pain shot through his head as blood poured steadily. The back of his head was then grabbed and pulled close.

‘You’re no demon,’ the guard sneered. ‘You scream like a man and you bleed like a man.’ Slowly moving forward, pulling Hidden Mist’s hair ruthlessly back, the guard placed his mouth on his victim’s neck. Hidden Mist felt a moist tongue run up and down his throat. The hair was yanked forward and the guard placed his blood-coated lips beside Hidden Mist’s ear. ‘And you taste like a man.’

Tightening his grip on the prisoner’s hair, the guard gave an evil laugh. The ripped-out scalp hair was thrown to the floor. ‘Strip him naked.’

The dark blue trousers and soiled loincloth were pulled off. A stick was used to prod and probe while the guards taunted his shrivelled manhood.

‘Now, what’s your name?’

Keep your mouth shut. Show defiance. Don’t react.

‘Don’t worry. I didn’t expect an answer. But everyone talks sooner or later.’ The guard wrapped his calloused left hand around Hidden Mist’s wrist. ‘Which finger shall I break first?’ he pondered.

Taking his time, he grabbed the little finger firmly with his right hand. ‘The little finger is the easiest to break. But what people don’t realize is that you should always bend it to the side, not backwards.’

The base of the finger snapped in two like a dry, crisp twig. Hidden Mist let out a sickening scream.

‘Speak! What’s your name?’

This time, Hidden Mist gritted his teeth in expectation of more bone breaking.

Grabbing the prisoner’s stout middle finger, the guard asked, ‘Do you know that the middle finger is the second easiest to break?’ He leaned in close. ‘But this one needs to be bent backwards.’

The finger was broken cleanly. To increase the pain, the guard forcefully twisted the fractured finger. ‘Payback for insulting my mother and sister,’ he growled.

Hidden Mist screamed from the back of his throat. Even with all his training, he could not shut out the agony.

The guard’s gaunt face edged forwards. ‘I love this job. It’s better than the backbreaking work in the copper mines or sweeping dung from the streets.’ He spat into Hidden Mist’s face. ‘What’s your name?’

Silence.

There was more bone breaking, more screaming, yet Hidden Mist stubbornly divulged nothing.

After the right hand, the guard methodically began cracking the fingers on the left.

‘You’re a hard man,’ he said as he looked at the ninja’s mangled hands. Only one finger remained untouched. ‘All this work is thirsty business,’ the guard said as he prodded the long index finger. ‘I need a break – and by the look of it, so do you.’

A piercing screech resonated around the courtyard as the last finger was broken. Hidden Mist was thrown roughly to the ground with a few stiff kicks to the abdomen and groin. The guards turned away, satisfied.

Adrenaline surged through Hidden Mist’s broken body. He was terrified and demoralized. His sphincter muscles contracted involuntarily. The foul smell of faeces that suffused the castle’s execution courtyard was, after all, human.

The senior guard looked at one of his subordinates. ‘Send word to Fujiwara.’ He paused, his face widening in a warped grin. ‘He’ll know what to do.’

CHAPTER 3

Fushimi village

Fujiwara was in a foul mood. He was standing, looking in the mirror, and tying his topknot. He called out to his wife. ‘Hayaku!’ Hurry up!

A strikingly beautiful woman came shuffling nervously into a large room. A tight, cherry-blossom-patterned Chinese silk kimono, revealing ample breasts and a shapely figure, bound her well-formed, slim body. With her alluring looks, people could have mistaken her for a geisha.

Bowing gracefully, Rieko wondered what was wrong. She looked to the ground as she entered the room. It wasn’t out of deference. She felt revulsion. No longer could she stand looking at her husband: his deep-pitted facial scars repulsed her.

Smallpox had been plaguing Japan for many years. Fujiwara was fortunate to have survived. For her, it was a different matter. She secretly wished for his death.

Her husband had turned violent and his beatings became more frequent. Because of his disfigured looks, other samurai had begun to cold-shoulder him. The prestigious jobs were given to others, and he was assigned the menial tasks that nobody else wanted. Their savings had dwindled and the shame, at times, was unbearable.

‘We need to talk,’ the samurai said.

‘Is there trouble at the castle?’ his wife replied, fiddling nervously with her hands.

‘There is, but that is not your concern. You need to talk to your son,’ Fujiwara responded, looking irritated. ‘The neighbour told me that Shuntaro was tormenting a cat.’

‘Was she sure it was him?’

Teru Fujiwara cast his wife a black look. ‘Yes. Where’s the boy now?’

‘Playing with his friends.’

‘He doesn’t have friends!’

‘No, I mean he’s playing with his toads. Shun is upstairs in his bedroom.’

‘Why isn’t he studying swordsmanship?’

Rieko shot an apprehensive glance at her husband. ‘Shyness. I don’t think he will become a great warrior, but I think he will become a wonderful artist. Shun is a gifted boy.’

‘A gifted liar!’

She shot him an angry glance.

‘Shuntaro is ill-disciplined, and he is a trickster.’ The samurai leaned against the wall and shook his head. ‘The fifth principle of bushido is honesty. He shames the Fujiwara clan.’

No, it is you who shames the clan, his wife thought.

Teru caught the strange look in his wife’s eyes. He looked at her with suspicion. She was still pretty – maybe too pretty. At the back of his mind, he had nagging doubts about the legitimacy of his son. Shuntaro didn’t resemble him, nor was his attitude tolerable for a boy of samurai blood. He had noted that some of the younger men gave his wife lustful looks and she seemed to enjoy the attention.

Moving to the door, he brushed past his wife, knocking her off balance. ‘I’m going.’

‘Where are you going?’

He turned back to face his wife. ‘I’ve been summoned to the castle.’ He glared at her. ‘Talk to the boy about his behaviour.’

‘I think it’s best if you do it.’

‘I’m busy.’

‘You always leave when we have something important to discuss,’ she said in a burst of frustration.

Teru reddened. ‘Be quiet.’

‘No. Not this time.’

‘Quiet! You’re a disgrace,’ he bellowed.

‘You’re the one who’s the disgrace,’ his wife hissed back.

‘What did you say?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Why am I a disgrace? Answer me!’

‘You work with eta,’ Rieko blurted out.

Teru’s eyes narrowed. ‘It’s better than no work.’

‘You could work for the Hata clan. They’re rich and they always need samurai.’

In a fit of rage, Teru took a couple steps towards his wife and slapped her across the face. ‘Never say that again. My duty is to my lord, whatever job he gives me. As for the Hata clan . . . I despise those stinking immigrants.’

Rieko started crying.

‘Never mention the Hatas ever again. Or I will throw you and the boy into the street.’

Incensed, Rieko clawed at her husband’s face. The scratch was deep. It drew blood.

Teru pushed her away and punched her in the face. The blow sent her crashing to the floor. She lay dazed. He stood, glaring angrily. ‘Do you have anything else to say?’

‘You should commit seppuku if you had any dignity,’ Rieko screamed from the floor.

‘Then where will that leave you? Scavenging for scraps.’ Slamming the door behind him, Teru left.

Outside, he took a moment to catch his breath. He looked up at the mountain in front of him and let his eyes follow the trail that snaked part way up its slopes. It was lined with thousands of vibrant orange and black gates and led to the Fushimi Inari Shrine. It was an impressive Shinto shrine that predated the establishment of Kyoto and was dedicated to the goddess of rice by the Hata clan. The shrine was revered by those looking for luck in business or success with their crops and was yet another reminder of the Hatas he so despised.

Like all samurai, Teru saw money as a vulgar concern and looked down on the Hatas. But the Hatas were one of the most powerful clans in Kyoto. Even worse, they had Korean ancestry. From Korea they had brought with them the skills of silk weaving and brewing. They were accomplished in financial matters, and they flaunted their riches. Reiko was certainly right about that. Their vast wealth had been crucial in the establishment of Kyoto.

Teru mounted his horse and rode south, grimacing as he passed the silk-weaving shops en route to the castle where it would be his job to strong-arm the captured ninja for information.

Rieko stepped towards the door and looked on as her husband cantered off. She began trembling. Without him there would be no money. Her family would be condemned to a life of poverty. She couldn’t let that happen to her cherished son.

CHAPTER 4

The door was closed. Shun had placed a block of wood at its base, jamming it shut.

From his closet, he retrieved a black lacquered bamboo box and set it on the table. The box kept his treasures: a knot of common toads. He lifted out the plumpest toad and put it carefully on the table. Rummaging around inside a bag, he extracted some crumpled paper, paints, a brush, a needle and a short-bladed knife.

Clutching the toad in one hand, Shun gripped the needle in the other. A thin scream emanated from the toad as the needle slowly slid through its body.

It thrilled the boy.

Pity was something Shun never felt. He put the skewered creature down, watching it with twisted fascination as it made several unsuccessful attempts to leap across the table. After a while, Shun picked up the maimed toad and flipped it onto its back. Then he set about dissecting the moist-skinned creature. He did this slowly, prolonging the suffering.

A delicate slit was cut from the base of the toad’s throat all the way down between its hind legs. Peeling the leathery skin back, Shun was entranced by the different shapes and colours of the various slimy organs. The guts and blood were oddly appealing and so was the salty copper smell given off by the oozing body fluids. With the ink brush, Shun began to sketch.

When he’d finished, he stared at his little masterpiece of blood and guts, but felt no emotion. Satisfied, Shun packed away his tools and paint, stuffed the mutilated toad into his kimono and tiptoed down to the kitchen. His mother stood with her back to him.

He slipped in and stood behind her.

‘Okasan!’ Mother!

Rieko jumped, let out a short, nervous scream and spun around. ‘Don’t do that.’ Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply. ‘How many times have I told you?’

Shun looked at her, unmoved. He noticed her swollen black eye and puffy face, but it meant nothing to him.

Slowly the rush of adrenaline through her arteries began to quieten. ‘I’m glad you’re here. We need to talk. Did you hurt the neighbour’s cat?’ she asked uneasily.

First came the look of shock. ‘No. It wasn’t me.’ Shun shook his head.

‘The truth,’ she demanded.

‘Why do people always blame me?’ he whined. The lengthy denial went on until a sweet smile indicated that his mother had fallen for his tall story – wilfully ignorant as usual.

‘I believe you,’ she said, smiling with her soft, trusting eyes.

‘It was probably those stinking Koreans,’ Shun said in a deadpan voice.

‘You shouldn’t say that.’

‘Why not? My father always says that the Hatas are blood-sucking—’

‘That’s enough!’

Shun dropped his gaze to the floor. He looked up again with his fake sorrowful eyes. ‘There’s something that I must show you.’ Fishing through his pockets, Shun pulled out a lump of brownish mangled flesh. Shun watched his mother’s face with his intense eyes.

‘What is it?’ she screamed in shock.

Shun noted every detail of her reaction: the widened eyes, the raised eyebrows, the open mouth and the rise in pitch of her voice.

‘I found it in the storeroom.’

‘Take it outside and wash your hands,’ his mother shouted pointing to the door.

The edge of Shun’s mouth formed into a trace of a smile. He promptly turned and walked outside. The dead toad was flung indignantly at the neighbour’s wall before Shun sauntered off to a nearby well.

Shun grabbed the handle of an empty bucket. Just before dipping it into the static water, he caught his own reflection. Gazing deeply into the perfectly smooth surface of the pool, he slowly began opening his mouth, raising his eyebrows and widening his eyes. It was the identical expression to the one he’d just observed on his mother’s face.

Shun couldn’t feel guilt, remorse or love. He knew he was different, but something in his impaired brain told him to learn to mimic those emotions that normal people possessed.

A sociopath he was born; a sociopath he would stay. There was no cure for the sickness Shun had.

CHAPTER 5

Dehydrated and in agony, Hidden Mist was left lying in the sun for almost a day while his wounds festered and his skin burnt. He had lost all sense of time when suddenly, in his delirious state, he heard the entrance gate to the execution courtyard slowly creak open. He trembled, knowing more pain would follow.

‘Konban wa, Fujiwara,’ an eta guard said respectfully, bowing low.

‘Konban wa,’ Teru Fujiwara answered, irritably.

‘The prisoner . . .’ The guard hesitated.

‘What is it?’ Teru growled.

‘He refuses to speak.’

Teru motioned to the three guards with his head. ‘Follow me.’

Hidden Mist’s eyes anxiously tracked the man heading towards him. The bearskin sandals and two swords tucked into his belt indicated that he was a samurai. Tall, neatly dressed and with his hair tightly pulled into an immaculate ponytail, he fitted the part perfectly.

Standing above the bloody and battered prisoner, Teru quickly scrutinized the guard’s handiwork. He then cleared his throat and knelt down. ‘You know why I’m here. We’re going to kill you, but you have a choice – quick or slow.’ He paused. ‘Tell me what I want to know and let it be done with.’ He looked into bloodshot eyes. ‘What’s your name?’

Hidden Mist looked to the ground, saying nothing.

‘If you answer just a dozen simple questions, there’ll be no more torture. I promise.’

Keeping his head down, he avoided eye contact.

‘What’s your name?’

Silence.

Teru gripped a broken finger and began to squeeze and slowly twist.

‘No!’ Hidden Mist screamed in agony.

‘I’ll let you into a little secret. By the end of the night, you’ll have wished you were dead.’ Teru released the finger. ‘If you don’t answer, your fingers will be sawn off.’

Hidden Mist turned to face one of the guards, who had the bamboo handsaw in his belt. The guard’s facial expression indicated that he was eagerly awaiting the command.

‘Now, this is your last chance. What’s your name?’

‘Kirigakure Saizo.’

Teru sucked air through his teeth. Hidden Mist. For a moment he studied the tired face of the infamous assassin in disbelief. ‘Just one more question and if you cooperate, I’ll get you some water. Who sent you?’

‘Koreans,’ Hidden Mist lied.

‘Koreans?’ Teru shouted, horror-struck and disgusted. ‘Good, now we are getting somewhere. Just tell me a little more,’ he said tensely.

‘The Koreans want Toyotomi dead. Revenge for the invasion of 1592.’

‘Those garlic-eating filth,’ Teru spat. In his heart he was overjoyed, thrilled even. Recently there had been a suspension of hostilities towards Korea, but with this news that would surely count for nothing. Teru turned to a scruffy guard. ‘Bring some water immediately.’

Hidden Mist could see hatred for Koreans burning in the samurai’s eyes, but he sensed something more was bothering him. He searched for a clue, catching the scratch that ran down the side of his face. Women