“Fusō is a magnificent country,” Barbara Nichols proclaimed in her thickly-accented Japanese. “Absolutely breathtaking. Thomas and I have travelled all over this globe, and I can confidently say that we’ve yet to encounter a nation with scenery more beautiful than can be found here.” She paused to take another sip of tea. “Lakes as still and clear as polished glass, mountains so tall that they pierce the highest clouds, valleys so lush and verdant that one half-expects to encounter the forbidden fruit itself... I dare say I’m jealous.”

Ayumi shot her guest a skeptical look. “Jealous? Of me? Don’t be silly.” She glanced outside through the open shōji doors, at the fenced-in rock garden behind her house. Its landscaped waves of bone-white sand were polluted with ugly red flecks of desert soil, the blemishes visible even in the fading twilight. Ayumi was certain that Mrs. Nichols had noticed. With the help of her house servant Hina, Ayumi had spent much of the day trying to purify the garden before her guests arrived. But it’d been no use; the swirling afternoon winds had conspired to befoul her garden faster than she could cleanse it. There’d been a time in the distant past when Ayumi had found a certain tranquility in tending to her garden, but now it was largely an exercise in frustration. For fifteen years she’d lived in the shadow of Akaishi Castle, and yet she was no more accustomed to life in the desert today than she’d been when she first arrived. In fact Ayumi loathed the desert, and the feeling seemed to be mutual.

“It’s true that there are many places in Fusō that are very beautiful,” Ayumi continued, “but this place isn’t one of them.”

“On the contrary,” Mrs. Nichols insisted, “of all the sights I’ve seen, the deserts of Akaishi may just be the most breathtaking of them all.”

Ayumi smiled politely. “That’s very kind of you to say. But you can’t possibly mean it. Akaishi Province is little more than a barren wasteland.”

Mrs. Nichols chuckled. “I was raised in El Paso, dear. So I suppose I have a soft spot for barren wastelands.” She took another sip of tea. “But it’s more than that. The sky seems larger here somehow. The air seems sharper. In all my life, I’ve never visited a place quite like this. There’s something... I don’t know, something positively mythological about the Akaishi Desert. Surely you must sense the magic in this place.”

Ayumi shrugged. “Mostly I just sense the heat.”

As if in response, another gust of stifling desert air pushed its way through the open doorway and into the tea room, refusing to relent even at this late hour. The wind loosened a few strands of Mrs. Nichols’s straw-colored hair, which she promptly tucked behind her ear. She had a wide face, her pale blue eyes set far apart from one another, her mouth stretched in a long thin smile. She looked to be in her mid-forties, remarkably tall and thickly-set, so much so that she’d taken to wearing a man’s kimono during her stay in Fusō, as it was difficult to locate a women’s in her size. Though the delegation from the Republic of Texas had only just arrived in Akaishi Province three days ago, whispered jibes about the monstrous Mrs. Nichols and her diminutive husband had already spread to every corner of town. But Ayumi thought she was quite beautiful, in a robust sort of way.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to close these doors?” Ayumi asked. “Perhaps it will keep out this heat.”

“Oh, please don’t!” Mrs. Nichols pleaded. “It’s a lovely evening. And your home has such a fantastic view…” She gestured out to the darkening sky, where a few stars were beginning to reassert themselves in the east. Only the imposing towers of Akaishi Castle, high atop Daiza Rock, remained bathed in the orange glow from the setting sun.

Ayumi heard the floorboards creak as their husbands returned from the library. Thomas Nichols appeared in the doorway first, carrying a leather-bound book under his arm. He was indeed a short man, but not unusually so, his height only noteworthy in comparison to his wife’s. His light-brown hair was thinning on top, and he wore a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles that were slightly too large for his face. Unlike his wife, Thomas Nichols had refused to wear a kimono, instead wearing a tweed suit complete with starched collared shirt, tightly-knotted necktie, double-breasted vest, slate-gray frock coat and trousers. His only concession to Fusōnese custom was to remove his shoes as he’d entered their home, and in his bare socks Mr. Nichols’ outfit somehow lost all its dignity, making him look buffoonish instead. Such clothing was ludicrously impractical in this heat, and he was constantly dabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief, which was now so soaked with sweat that it deposited more moisture on his skin than it absorbed. But as the official translator of the visiting diplomatic legation, he’d insisted on “dressing properly” for the occasion, so as to not offend his hosts. Ayumi wondered if Mr. Nichols had considered what his hosts might think of his constant wheezing and perspiring.

As the Texian diplomat slumped his way into the tea room, Kenshin strode through the doorway just behind him, the two men chatting with one another in English. Ayumi couldn’t remember her husband ever looking so handsome. His lean face was clean-shaven, and his full head of lustrous black hair was tied in a tight topknot, with only the slightest hints of gray to indicate his approaching middle-age. He wore his finest kimono of dyed-auburn silk, with the crest of the Ishida Clan embroidered onto each lapel: one triangle above two triangles, all within a wide circle. Kenshin’s dark eyes shone with a blazing intelligence, clearly relishing the opportunity to converse with a native English speaker. His current appearance was a far cry from the glazed expression, rumpled clothing and disheveled birds-nest hair that he typically wore after a long day in his library, obsessively translating the latest novel or technical manual or newspaper article or heaven-knew-what-else. The recent arrival of the Texian diplomats had jolted Kenshin out of that dreary routine, and with Lord Ishida in need of his own translator for the negotiations, Kenshin had no choice but to clean himself up for the occasion, transforming himself from a frazzled librarian to a model samurai. If there was one good thing that’d come of the visit from these strange foreigners, Ayumi reflected, it’s that it’d shaken her husband out of his doldrums.

Kenshin caught Ayumi’s eye and gave her a sympathetic smile, a non-verbal apology for allowing Thomas Nichols to enter the tea room through the host entrance, and not through the guest entrance as etiquette would dictate. Ayumi knew that her guests didn’t mean to be rude, and that their ill manners were due entirely to their ignorance. It wasn’t their fault, after all, that they came from such an uncouth and uncultured society. But she struggled to suppress her indignance all the same. Surely it could be explained to them that all visitors should enter the tea room through the smaller guest entrance, its overhead built low so that they may bow as they enter, showing humility and deference to their hosts. But no; Kenshin had insisted that the usual rules of etiquette be ignored tonight. “If there’s one thing they hate in Texas, it’s formality,” Kenshin had told her that morning. “And if there’s a second, it’s humility.”

The two men took their seats on the floor, alongside their wives by the hearth. Hina came into the tea room behind them, quietly swapped the kettle with a fresh one, and exited again. Barbara Nichols noticed the book under her husband’s arm.

“What’ve you got there, dear?” Mrs. Nichols posed the question in Japanese for Ayumi’s benefit. Of the four of them, Ayumi was the only one who didn’t speak English.

“The latest Dickens,” Thomas Nichols explained — also in Japanese — as he handed his wife the book. Ayumi couldn’t read the text on its cover, but she did recognize the name, an English author that her husband was fond of. “A gift from Kenshin. Can you believe he was able to acquire a copy here, of all places? Old Mickelson was still waiting for my copy to arrive from New York when we left.”

Mrs. Nichols flipped through the pages, looking mildly impressed. “Who would’ve thought a country like Fusō would be such a hotbed of English literature?”

“There’s a merchant in Makiso who obtains foreign books for me whenever he’s able,” Kenshin explained with a shrug.

“The Comanche bring all sorts of things over the border from Texas,” Ayumi added. “The town of Makiso is the center of trade for all of Akaishi Province, you’d be surprised how many Texian goods you can find there.”

There was an awkward glance between the two men, and Ayumi belatedly realized that she’d broached a sore subject. Mrs. Nichols only chuckled. “All that trouble to acquire it, and now you’re just giving it away? It must not be a very good book.”

“Oh no,” Kenshin protested, “I enjoyed it tremendously. It wouldn’t be much of a gift, otherwise. It’s just that... Well I’ve decided not to translate it.”

“Why not?”

Kenshin seemed reluctant to explain. “I dare not unleash this book upon Fusō,” he said finally. “In uncertain times such as these, a tale that celebrates rebellion and revolution must not be allowed to circulate.”

Thomas Nichols snorted. “Nonsense. How dangerous could a book possibly be? No man was ever killed by ink and paper.”

“It’s the words on the paper that concern me.”

At the opposite end of the house, there was an insistent knocking at the front door. Ayumi could hear Hina’s footsteps moving to answer it.

“Words, ideas, beliefs,” the Texian diplomat rolled his eyes. “None as lethal as one good firearm.”

“The Shishi rebels grow stronger every day,” Ayumi insisted, struggling to restrain her annoyance with her disagreeable guest. “They now have the support of some of the most powerful lords in Fusō. Any rhetoric which might further embolden the Shishi cause—”

“‘Cause’?” Thomas Nichols interrupted. “My dear Mrs. Ukita, there is only one ‘cause’ in this world that’s worth fighting for, and that is self-interest. There’s nothing to fear from men who fight for principle. Principles are so easily swayed by a handful of coins, or by a few well-placed threats. But give me a man who fights to protect that which is rightfully his, and I tell you he’ll be worth twenty who fight for some damned foolish idea.”

You’ve got some damned foolish ideas yourself, Ayumi wanted to say. Instead she just smiled and feigned interest.

“Take this rebellion in the United States, for instance—”

Ayumi belatedly noticed that at some point during Thomas Nichols’s lecture, Hina had reentered the tea room and was now whispering something into Kenshin’s ear. Kenshin listened for a while, looking slightly perplexed. Then he stood, and bowed to their guests. “Will you excuse me for one moment?”

Mr. Nichols nodded dismissively, barely pausing long enough to acknowledge Kenshin’s departure. “Yes, yes, of course. Now then Mrs. Ukita, take this rebellion in the United States. The North now claims to fight for a grand cause, no less than the emancipation of the entire negro race. Noble enough, if you’re the sort who believes in such things. Conversely, the Confederacy fights to defend its lands, its people, its very way of life. Now that is a cause that every southern man will gladly give his life for. Do you really think the average Union cavalryman will do the same? Will he give his life for his precious ideals? I sincerely doubt it! And that is why the South is sure to win this war. If only Texas had been admitted into the union all those years ago, why I’d be proudly fighting alongside my fellow Southerners this very moment.”

“Oh hush, Thomas,” Barbara chided. “You wouldn’t last ten minutes. You once fell off your horse because you were stung by a bee, for goodness’ sake.” She shot Ayumi a conspiratorial smile, and Ayumi couldn’t help but snicker.

“It was a swarm of bees,” Thomas explained, nursing his wounded pride. “And I didn’t fall, I was thrown.”

“That’s certainly not how all those parade-goers described it.”

Ayumi couldn’t keep herself from laughing, and she regretted it immediately. Thomas Nichols glared at Ayumi for a moment, his expression a mixture of fury and embarrassment, then he barked a few sharp words at his wife that Ayumi didn’t understand. Before long they were squabbling with one another in English. Ayumi waited in silence, hoping that their manners would eventually get the better of them. A full minute later their argument showed no sign of slowing, and Ayumi decided it might be best to excuse herself.

“Pardon me,” Ayumi whispered as she stood. She left the bickering foreigners behind in the tea room and went looking for Kenshin. She found him by the front door, tucking his swords into the sash of his kimono. Just outside the door, a courier from the Ishida Clan stood waiting, with six armored samurai in the street behind him. If that wasn’t enough indication that something was wrong, the worry lines on Kenshin’s face confirmed it.

“What is it?”

“I’ve been summoned to the castle,” Kenshin sighed as he adjusted the scabbard of his katana. “I don’t know for how long.”

“Lord Ishida is reconvening the negotiations?” Ayumi asked, glancing back towards their guests. “At this hour?”

“No,” Kenshin said quietly. “It’s something else.”

Ayumi frowned. “If not the negotiations, then what?”

“It’s probably nothing.” Kenshin glanced over Ayumi’s shoulder towards the tea room. The Nichols’ bickering could still be heard echoing down the hallway. “I’m sorry I have to leave you alone with these people. I never should have invited them.”

“Don’t worry about me,” she smiled. “If I can endure your mother, I can endure these two.”

Kenshin smiled, and the anxiety on his face disappeared for a brief instant. He knew full well that she’d endured far worse, in the years before she’d met Kenshin, or his mother.

The Ishida courier grunted impatiently, and the worry began to creep back into Kenshin’s eyes. He kissed her on the forehead.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

The phrase filled Ayumi filled with a sudden and intense dread as Kenshin departed for the castle. It was a phrase not too dissimilar from the last words that her father had spoken to her, a lifetime ago when he’d gone off to war with the Mexicans and never returned. Now, as she watched Kenshin turn at the crossroads and disappear from sight, she couldn’t shake the irrational thought that he too would never return; that her new family would crumble to dust, just as her old one had. Ayumi unconsciously clutched at the medallion that she wore around her neck beneath her kimono, the only remaining evidence of who she’d been before her escape to Akaishi, and she swore to herself that she would never let such a thing happen again. She wouldn’t make the same mistakes twice.

* * *

The lanterns were being lit all along the boulevard as Kenshin and his armored escort marched through the streets of Daiza. Akaishi Castle loomed nearer with each step, its towers silhouetted against the fading dusk. Kenshin struggled to restrain his anxiety. What was the reason for this unexpected summons? Had he done something wrong? Some sort of translation error during the negotiations with the Texians? Had he unwittingly insulted Lord Ishida in some way? A thousand scenarios ran through his mind, and few of them were comforting.

The town was strangely deserted for this time of night, which only served to unnerve Kenshin further. Their route to the castle took them through the center of the eastern marketplace, where commoners and impoverished samurai could purchase staples like rice and water and undyed silks. Normally the market would be full of activity even at this late hour, but on this night most of the shops were closed early, and hardly a soul was to be seen aside from the occasional beggar or mendicant monk slumped at the side of the road. Where was everybody? Something strange was going on, and it only made Kenshin’s imagination run wilder. His thoughts turned to the two foreigners that he’d left alone with his wife. Could all this strangeness have something to do with their visit? A bolt of fear struck Kenshin, but he calmed himself by remembering that Thomas and Barbara Nichols were far more likely to harm one another than anyone else around them. And besides, Ayumi could take care of herself, as anyone who’d been present at the Siege of Oukangen Castle could attest.

As Kenshin and his escort left the eastern marketplace behind them, another pack of samurai appeared from around a street corner, also wearing the armor of the Ishida Clan. At its center was Ujimasa Osedo, the clan’s chief metallurgist, whose simple blue kimono stood in contrast to the red suits of armor which surrounded him. Kenshin didn’t know the man well — their paths didn’t frequently cross — but his impression was one of a goodnatured and unflappable young samurai. Osedo laughed when he spotted Kenshin approaching with his own escort in tow, and soon the two groups of samurai were walking side-by-side through the empty town.

“You too, huh?”

Kenshin nodded. “So it would seem.”

Osedo laughed again, though Kenshin couldn’t imagine why. “Something peculiar is afoot, eh Kenshin? I don’t suppose you have any idea what this is all about?”

“No, I don’t,” Kenshin responded as they emerged from a narrow avenue onto the town’s main thoroughfare, which curved through the center of Daiza towards the castle gates. As their destination came into view, Kenshin’s heart leapt into his throat. “But I think we’re about to find out.”

Hundreds of villagers were gathered around the gates, perhaps even a thousand, commoners and samurai alike. There was a nervous energy in the crowd, a strange mixture of confusion and anticipation, as if some brief burst of excitement had drawn them all there and then suddenly evaporated, leaving them to mutter to one another in bewilderment. Many of them craned their necks towards the gates, in anticipation that another burst of excitement might occur at any moment. Osedo chortled as they approached the throng.

“Tell me Kenshin, what sort of a thing requires the expertise of a metallurgist and a linguist, and draws a crowd like this?”

Kenshin shook his head. “I’ve never been one for riddles.”

Osedo laughed. “Perhaps someone has forged a sword that speaks French…”

Kenshin and Osedo reached the edge of the crowd, which immediately parted for them and their escort. As they pushed their way through, Kenshin could suddenly feel a thousand eyes upon him, their expressions a mixture of respect and mistrust. Kenshin knew that such things weren’t personal; he was a representative of the Ishida Clan, and as such, he instilled these sorts of feelings in people wherever he went. As he gazed up at the magnificent natural tower that dominated the town, and the magnificent man-made towers atop it, Kenshin could certainly understand the source of their mistrust. The contrast couldn’t have been more apparent between the grandeur of Akaishi Castle above, and the humble assemblage of villagers amassed below. The castle had served as the seat of the Ishida Clan’s power since its construction, shortly after Akaishi Province had been seized in the Mexican War. But the town of Daiza below it was little more than a simple frontier village, and a poor one at that. It had no natural resources to speak of, no significant trade, no agriculture, no livestock, no silks or textiles. The town’s only source of income was from taxes levied by the Ishida Clan, and very little of that wealth dribbled its way down to the townspeople. Daiza was a village of haves and have-nots, and it was no wonder that the Shishi rebels had found such fertile ground for their cause out here in the wastes of Akaishi.

The crowd ceased about forty paces from the gates, held back by a scattered semi-circle of authoritative-looking samurai in purple silks. These were the Sabakugumi, the “Desert Regiment”, an independent police force originally chartered by the central government to combat the Shishi rebels, but which increasingly served as a general peacekeeping force along the frontier provinces. Kenshin and Osedo passed through the line of purple-clad samurai, who stared at the two of them with the same mistrust as the rest of the crowd. The Sabakugumi were rōnin, masterless samurai one and all, each one of them an unpaid volunteer. Their organization received a modest allowance from the central government, but those funds barely covered the cost of weapons and equipment, and so its individual officers were forced to rely on the generosity of those they protected — and, no doubt, the occasional bribe as well. And while the Ishida Clan had become dependent on these rōnin to keep the peace, the Sabakugumi were loyal only to their commander, the great war hero Takamine Taro. Kenshin scanned the crowd for Taro, and to his relief the famous samurai was nowhere to be seen.

The castle gates stood open, and Kenshin and Osedo were waved straight through by the Ishida Clan sentries. Their escort remained outside while the two samurai passed through the gates and into the bowels of Daiza Rock. The enormous doors swung shut behind them, sending a great booming echo through the high-ceilinged receiving chamber. Kenshin and Osedo paused to let their eyes adjust to the near-darkness as the echoes faded, leaving behind a deep penetrating silence. The receiving chamber was cut from bare stone, narrow passageways carved into either side. Rows of banners lined the walls, each bearing the seal of the Ishida Clan. Two rows of standing torches lit a path through the chamber, and opposite the gates on the far side of the room was a wide staircase that led up into darkness.

A strange slurping sound to Kenshin’s left caught his attention; a single gaunt horse gulped from a bucket of water held by a young stable boy, while the elderly stablemaster Tsueno stroked its mane and cooed in the horse’s ear. It was extremely unusual to see a horse inside the castle gates; yet another clue to the strange riddle into which Kenshin and Osedo had been drawn. Even Lord Ishida himself kept his horses stabled outside the gates, to be retrieved by a servant whenever his lordship required its use. Tsuneo hardly seemed to notice the arrival of Kenshin and Osedo, too preoccupied with giving care to the ailing animal.

The faint sound of footsteps echoed down the grand staircase. Two men emerged from the darkness, coming down the steps and into the center of the chamber. When they stepped into the torchlight, Kenshin gulped reflexively. The man on the left was Ogata Ginpei, the treasurer of the Ishida Clan and a senior member of Lord Ishida’s high council. The middle-aged samurai fanned himself as he waited, his wide scowling face covered in sweat. Beside him was Ishida Terutsugu, the second-most powerful man in Akaishi Province, chief executor of the Ishida Clan and younger brother to Lord Ishida Tadashi. He was barely over thirty, tall and slender, his hair tied in a precise topknot, the pate of his head meticulously shaven. He carried himself with a casual imperiousness that came from a lifetime of power and authority. Terutsugu wore an elaborately-textured kimono that was dyed a bright orange with brown shibori patterns, with broad-shouldered auburn haori jacket and wide auburn hakama trousers. It was a garish ensemble that should have looked unbecoming of a man of his noble stature, but somehow Terutsugu wore it well. Kenshin and Osedo approached the two powerful samurai, stopped, and bowed deeply.

“Osedo,” Terutsugu greeted the metallurgist, ignoring Kenshin entirely. Terutsugu held out his hand, which Ginpei filled with a gray-ish metal ingot of some sort. “What do you make of this?”

Terutsugu passed the metallic brick to Osedo, who studied the bar intently, holding it up to the light, scratching its surface, judging its weight. But it was the crest that was engraved upon the rectangular ingot that caught Kenshin’s attention: six circles, in three sets of two, each with a small square nested inside. It was the family crest of the Sanada Clan, the richest and most powerful family in all of Fusō, and ancient rivals of the Ishida Clan.

“Silver bullion,” Osedo replied simply, ignoring the Sanada crest and its implications. “Based on its weight I’d say it’s worth about four thousand monme, perhaps a bit more.” Kenshin watched Osedo turn the silver over in his hands, just a small piece of metal that happened to be worth five times Kenshin’s yearly stipend. He was astonished that such a simple thing could be so terribly valuable. It was often said that there are more bars of silver in the Sanada Clan’s vaults than there are stars in the sky, and if such tales were even half-true, Kenshin was now beginning to appreciate the full extent of the Sanada Clan’s immense wealth.

“If I may be permitted to ask,” Osedo bowed politely, “where did this come from?”

“You’re the expert,” Ginpei scoffed. “Why don’t you tell us?”

Osedo covered his irritation with a chuckle. “You misunderstand, Ginpei-sama. I was asking how this silver came to be here in Akaishi Province, not about its point of origin. Frankly, if you summoned me here to determine that, you needn’t have bothered.” He held up the ingot and presented the Sanada Clan’s crest. “You may have overlooked a big clue.”

“You insolent...!” Ginpei sputtered. “Do you take us for fools? Anyone could have melted down some silver and engraved it with the Sanada seal! Just what do you take us for—”

Terutsugu held up a hand to silence Ginpei, and the treasurer’s puffed-out chest deflated instantly. “We must know whether this bar is authentic Sanada silver,” Terutsugu explained, “or some sort of trick or forgery.”

Osedo nodded and reexamined the silver, holding the ingot up to the torchlight. “Well based on the patina, I’d say it looks authentic enough. The color is consistent with traces of copper and mercury, which is characteristic of silver extracted from the Washo mine in Taho Province.” He was silent for a moment, his full attention on the silver bar and the ways in which the light from a nearby torch reflected off its surface. “Yes,” he said finally. “I believe this is true Sanada silver, yes.”

Terutsugu rubbed his chin. “Are you certain? Or is this a guess?”

“It is my expert opinion,” Osedo bristled. “Not a guess. The only way to be absolutely certain would be to melt down the silver and measure its impurities precisely.”

“How long would that take?”

Osedo thought it over. “Five days.”

“Very well, do it. But the tests must be done in absolute secrecy. No one must know of the existence of this silver. Is that understood?”

The question was directed at both of them, the first time Kenshin’s presence had been acknowledged. Osedo and Kenshin bowed in agreement. Now that he’d finally been recognized, Kenshin felt bold enough to speak.

“Forgive me for repeating the question, Terutsugu-sama, but… just where did this silver come from?”

Terutsugu grinned. “Follow me.”

* * *

Somewhere in the maze of tunnels that were carved into the butte beneath Akaishi Castle, Terutsugu opened a non-descript door and led Kenshin, Ginpei and Osedo into a small chamber containing nothing but crates of unfletched arrows. At first glance it seemed to be a simple storage room, until Terutsugu pushed a particularly tall stack of crates aside, revealing a hidden passageway which led to an antechamber where two of Lord Ishida’s personal guard stood watch. Terutsugu and Ginpei entered the small room and removed their shoes, much to Kenshin’s surprise. It wasn’t until Kenshin caught sight of the corridors that lay beyond the guarded antechamber that he understood: the halls ahead had the polished wooden floors and rice-paper walls of a respectable and well-maintained home, a far cry from the bare stone corridors at their backs. It looked to be an emergency bunker of sorts, no doubt built for Lord Ishida and his high councilors. It was crude by the standards of a great lord, but not so crude to justify trampling its immaculate interior with dust and dirt, so Kenshin and Osedo removed their own footwear as they stepped up into the bunker, placing their shoes onto the rack next to their superiors’. Belatedly, Kenshin noticed the three sets of footwear that were already in the rack when they’d arrived: two pair of commonplace samurai geta, and one very conspicuous pair of western-style boots. It seemed that the solution to this strange riddle was finally beginning to take shape.

Terutsugu led the group down the hallway past some very clean and spacious living quarters. He reached one doorway in particular and slid it open, revealing Naitō Nobuhiro inside, leaning against a post in the center of a large empty room. The mere sight of the man put Kenshin on edge. Nobuhiro was captain of Lord Ishida’s personal guard and chief military advisor, and as such he always wore his full armor and helmet, his unmistakable headgear adorned with a golden crescent above its brow, its neck guards flaring down to his shoulders. He smoked a hand-rolled cigarette with one hand as he admired an enormous revolver in the other, the largest pistol that Kenshin had ever seen. Nobuhiro didn’t bother to look up from the weapon as the newcomers entered.

“How is he?” Terutsugu asked.

Nobuhiro exhaled a lungful of tobacco smoke and, still without glancing up, threw the remainder of his cigarette into the maw of a nearby lantern.

“He’ll live.”

“See that he does,” Terutsugu ordered. “My lord brother will want to question him.”

Nobuhiro tore his attention away from the pistol, and locked eyes with Terutsugu. “He’ll live,” he repeated.

Just then another set of doors slid open, revealing an adjoining room. Akiyama, the very elderly and very capable chief physician of the Ishida Clan, stood in the doorway holding a sweat-stained cloth.

“Ah, Terutsugu-sama,” Akiyama bowed and stepped aside, inviting the group in. “The patient is doing much better. I have his temperature under control, and the palpitations of his heart have ceased. I believe he is out of danger.”

Terutsugu nodded, and led the group into Akiyama’s makeshift infirmary. In one corner there was a single futon, with a half-conscious foreigner lain upon it. Wet rags were wrapped around the prone man’s bare chest and groin, with another across his forehead. On the floor next to the bedridden man was an open medicine chest full of vials and pouches and tinctures, as well as a small case filled with a multitude of steel medical instruments which seemingly offered a hundred different methods of probing, prodding and scraping. On the floor on the far side of the room there was a stack of freshly-laundered clothing, every stitch obviously foreign in origin: a brown wool duster jacket and trousers with a burnt-orange cotton shirt. Alongside the clothes were four canvas bags placed neatly along the wall, each filled with several dozen bars of silver bullion, all of them identical to the one that had been handed to Ujimasa Osedo earlier, each bearing the seal of the Sanada Clan.

While Osedo went to examine the bags of silver, Kenshin crossed the room to get a better look at the ailing foreigner. He looked to be perhaps thirty years old, with an olive complexion that was evident despite his cracked and sunburnt skin. His black shoulder-length hair was matted to his forehead with sweat, and his half-lidded eyes were filled with a sort of weary madness. He shifted back and forth restlessly in his bed, seemingly unaware of his surroundings, all the while muttering to himself under his breath.

“He’s awake,” Ogata Ginpei observed.

Akiyama nodded. “Awake, but quite delirious. He began this incessant gabbering around the time we were bathing him.”

“You bathed him?” Ginpei guffawed and shot an incredulous look towards Nobuhiro, who was in the process of rolling another cigarette. “The great warrior Naitō Nobuhiro turns nursemaid?”

Nobuhiro leaned against the doorframe and shrugged. “He smelled.”

“He’s been through quite an ordeal,” Akiyama explained, “but he’s resilient, this one. I expect he’ll recover his wits by morning.”

The foreigner’s murmuring suddenly became more insistent, as if his addled mind suddenly registered their presence, and was now struggling to tell them something terribly urgent.

“What’s he saying?” Terutsugu asked. The room fell silent as Kenshin kneeled at the foreigner’s bedside and leaned his ear over the man’s mouth, straining to listen to his slurred English mutterings:

“...we’re free now, I’m-I’m free, free man… just open the safe… safe, you’ll be perfectly… say some Indians... Indians, listen Susan… red feather, red… red father… forget it, don’t forget it, forget I ever… money in the bag, the bag… poisoned Susan, I told you… mine now, not anymore… You can go now, you can go, go… go to hell…”

“He’s just speaking nonsense,” Kenshin reported as he leaned in closer. “It’s gibberish. I think he must be—”

“Quite delirious,” Akiyama interjected, “as I said.”

Kenshin listened to the foreigner babble to himself for a while longer, hoping it would begin to make sense, but it never did. Finally he gave up and stood.

“Who is he?” Kenshin blurted, before he remembered himself and bowed. “That is, if I may be permitted to ask, Terutsugu-sama…”

“We don’t know who he is,” Terutsugu admitted. He reached into the folds of his kimono and retrieved a browned sheet of paper. “We were hoping this might explain things.”

Kenshin took the paper, which was criss-crossed with crude scribblings that may have been a map of some sort. Kenshin couldn’t make any sense of it, and was about to say so when he turned the paper over. On the opposite side was a wanted poster from the Republic of Texas, at its center an ambrotype photograph of the very same man who now lay at their feet. Kenshin gave the English text a quick once-over, then translated it aloud.

“William Reardon.” Kenshin over-enunciated the name for the benefit of his audience, who were unaccustomed to the strange foreign syllables. “Leader of the Reardon Gang. Wanted for numerous counts of murder, armed robbery, horse thievery and extreme wantonness. Three hundred dollar reward for his live capture, one hundred dollars dead. Contact nearest Texas Ranger office immediately.”

“I knew it!” Ginpei blurted. “You see? A criminal! I knew this man wasn’t to be trusted! This is all some sort of elaborate deception, it must be!”

“And if it isn’t?” Nobuhiro murmured through closed lips as he lit his fresh cigarette by the flame of a hanging lantern.

“If it isn’t,” Ishida Terutsugu sighed, “then the Sanada Clan’s influence stretches farther than we could’ve ever imagined. In five days we’ll know for certain, yes?”

“Absolutely, Terutsugu-sama,” Osedo nodded, and bowed.

Ginpei made a face. “And what to do with this... miscreant until then?”

“He risked his life to bring us these,” Terutsugu tapped one of the sacks of Sanada silver with his toe. “We must learn what it means.”

Nobuhiro took a deep drag off his cigarette. “Leave him down here,” he exhaled, “I’ll learn what there is to learn.”

“No,” Terutsugu commanded. “Half the town saw this man arrive. And the Sanada Clan’s spies are everywhere.”

An insubordinate look flashed across Nobuhiro’s face, but he remained silent.

“We must keep up appearances,” Terutsugu continued. “My lord brother will declare him a simple trespasser. To do anything else would raise suspicion. We’ll hand him over to the Sabakugumi, to be quietly retrieved for questioning in five days’ time.”

Nobuhiro grimaced. “They’ll execute him.”

“Not without a direct order from Takamine Taro,” Terutsugu countered. “And Taro is up in Ute country.”

“That information is days old now. He could be anywhere.”

Terutsugu gave Nobuhiro a hard stare. “Very well,” he finally conceded. “We post sentries at the execution grounds, to prevent Taro from putting the foreigner to death.”

Nobuhiro shook his head. “Do that, and Taro will simply carry out his executions elsewhere.”

“I don’t suppose you have an alternative suggestion?”

One corner of Nobuhiro’s mouth twitched, and he turned his withering gaze towards Kenshin. Terutsugu followed suit, and before long all eyes were on Kenshin, who suddenly became conscious of the lump forming in his throat.

“Tell me, Kenshin,” Nobuhiro took a huge pull from his cigarette, and exhaled smoke through his teeth like a hungry dragon. “Where do you live?”

Next Chapter: Chapter 2