The Plum Rains and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF

connoisseurs and affixing the hilts to the empty scabbards with bamboo wedges.
    Hasegawa halted in front of his companion. You look worse than I feel, he said. Although probably I don’t have to say it.
    You can say whatever you want. I don’t believe it would improve me.
    Viper Koda’s too-long sword carved great sibilant arcs out of the air, its passage like sheet lightning noticed an instant too late. But for all his pleasure in wielding it, Koda was also willing to fight with a wooden cudgel if he had nothing better available , or with an iron bar or sharpened bamboo pole or pointed cedar stake; he would batter with rocks if that was all he had, or cut with shards of clam shell or bits of chipped flint; he would kick and punch with the feet and the fists, strike with elbows and knees, and butt with his head; he would bite and gouge, strangle and smother, drown enemies in cisterns, lakes, streams, ponds and canals, hang them from ropes, fling them off cliffs, or bundle them onto fires.
    You never think you might want to try making friends with people? Hasegawa had asked him once; but the older samurai had assumed he meant as a tactical manoeuvre, and said that thinking that way would put you at a disadvantage.
    They found the drayman lounging in front of the waystation corral. He had lived all his life among horses, and over the years grown to resemble them, his face elongated, his gaze wary. Nowoman would share his habits so the drayman had never married . Whores demanded double-fees because of the pungency of his musk, and wineshops discouraged his patronage for the same reason. The drayman had spotted the two rogue samurai approaching, and he elected to display voluntarily the coins clutched in his fist rather than risk being made to do so.
    This seems to be the full amount, Hasegawa said. Minus two coppers.
    Koda speculated that that must be the real price for the funeral rites for a horse at this waystation.
    I guess so.
    Hasegawa pulled off one copper and handed it back to the drayman. On account of how you took care of my money for me last night. The fee for that.
    The drayman wasn’t sure if he should accept it.
    And also because we’re looking for a situation that might require our talents, Hasegawa said. Maybe you can help us.
    What kind of situation you looking for?
    Hasegawa smiled at the drayman. Why don’t you make us a suggestion? You can keep that copper. No matter what.
    The drayman eyed Viper Koda uncertainly. That the case with him too?
    Hasegawa laughed. I guess you could try asking him.
     
    T HEY CAUGHT UP WITH THE MERCHANT’S caravan at around the hour of the ram. The pack horses were grazing in a lush meadow, and the merchants and guards were sprawled in the shade of a mulberry grove.
    Hasegawa went over to talk with the man in charge.
    We heard you might need help.
    I already have help, said the merchant.
    We heard you might need more.
    Where’d you get all this about my needs?
    The drayman back there at the indigo dyer’s village.
    I don’t know him, the merchant said. Hasegawa just stood there so he added, What kind of work do you do?
    Blade work.
    The merchant looked down the road in the direction they were heading as if to suggest that better options might be available up ahead. I thought it’d be something like that, he said.
    We only charge for what’s unavoidable. And you only pay what it’s worth to you.
    So you’re not assassins?
    I wouldn’t use that word.
    That’s reassuring. The merchant still wouldn’t look at him. But like I said, I have what I need.
    Hasegawa saw Viper Koda watching him, his too-long sword carried over one shoulder much the way a peasant might tote a mattock. You let us know if you change your mind, Hasegawa said.
    By the hour of the monkey, Hasegawa and Koda had reached the outskirts of White Rock Village. A boy had been left there tethered to a roadside pine. He was a stunted little shirker dressed in a grimy short-robe held closed by a leather cord