Part 62 (2/2)

'Whoever draws the shortest is to inform the Castle Commandant of what has taken place. The others are to stay here and mount a vigil over the Shogun's body until we receive orders from a higher authority.

Agreed?”

His four companions accepted with an impa.s.sive nod.

Ryoku didn't have to elaborate. If Captain Kamakura was in league with those who had set out to kill the Shogun, then they - his personal guards - would be on the extermination list. There was no guarantee that whoever carried the news to him would return alive.

s.h.i.+moya who, at 24, was the youngest of the five samurai, drew the short straw. He bowed to his companions and hurried away.

Ryoku and the remaining guards carried Yoritomo's naked body over to the bed, laid him alongside Mis.h.i.+ko and drew the silken eiderdown over them. Forming a line facing the foot of the bed, the four samurai knelt down and paid their last respects to the Shogun with a deep bow then sat back cross-legged, hands resting on their knees, and sank into a trance-like state of meditation.

Nothing moved. Silence filled the room.

Roz and Cadillac, crouched on the steps in the secret pa.s.sageway, heard the death cries of Mis.h.i.+ko and the Shogun, and the thud of running feet as Yoritomo's bodyguards and servants rushed to his aid, the angry exchanges between them, imprecations, squeals of panic, the choice of someone to carry the news of Yoritomo's death to Kamakura, the soft shuffling of feet then silence.

Praying that the steps would not creak under his weight, Cadillac stood up carefully, uncovered the pin-hole in the beam that gave a blurred-edged view of the room and put his right eye against it. Roz heard him sigh.

'I don't believe this!” He sat down again. 'The Shogun and his sister are in the bed and there are four samurai sitting in front of it! What do we do now?”

'Why don't we just leave whispered Roz. 'You've got Ieyasu's head.

Isn't that enough?”

'.No! We've got to have both! Don't argue about it. I'm not giving up on this - okay?!'

'So...”

'Well, don't just sit there! Help me!” Roz let out a sigh that spoke volumes and squeezed past Cadillac towards the top of the stairs. 'You can be really stubborn - anyone ever told you that?”

'Later, Roz. Just do it!” 'Okay, okay. But when this is all over and you're raking in the glory, just remember- it may have been your idea, but I made it happen.”

Iron Masters were renowned for their toughness and resilience, and it was the samurai who set the standards to which all others aspired.

They were fearless warriors whose martial skills made them formidable opponents, but in one vital respect they were no different to the rest of tile population. They believed the world around them was also the home of good and evil kami - and spirit-witches.

Superst.i.tion, the fear of hob-goblins was their Achilles Heel, so it was not surprising that when a howling banshee burst through the outer wall and hurled streams of fire in their direction with her right hand, Ryoku and his companions came perilously close to a collective cardiac arrest. A second burst, from the fingers of the banshee's left hand struck the mattress-bed, turning it into a blazing funeral pyre.

To their credit, they tried to draw their swords - and found themselves clutching the necks of fiery snakes!

Throwing them down only compounded the horror, for the serpents shattered like a porcelain vase and the burning fragments grew in the twinkling of an eye into a swarm of hideous, claw-fingered, orange-skinned devils who were clearly intent on tearing them limb from limb.

Captain Kamakura, returning with s.h.i.+moya and fifty men, found the four unarmed samurai outside the entrance to the Shogun's apartments, still trembling from their experience. Listening to their account - which caused the soldiers behind him to mutter nervously amongst themselves Kamakura realised with growing dread that they had been the victims of witchcraft. There were, as far as he knew, only two exponents of this grey art in the palace - and he had met both of them!

'Where is this banshee and her horde of devils now?”

'I do not know,' said Ryoku. 'They pursued us from the bed-chamber but' - he paused, visibly perplexed 'the flames we saw consume the Shogun did not spread.

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