text: Hori cowered in the dark mansion. The servants had fled. He was panting heavily. Had the woman Momoe seen his face? In any case it did not matter. The other, Midori, had proven to be a spy of the magistrate's. There could only be one reason to plant a spy here. His activities were known. He licked his lips nervously, then started scrabbling through the chests in Haruko's room. He knew she was the murderess. Perhaps if he found some evidence ... Maybe he could trade it for his life. He kept his ears cocked for the sounds of movement outside, his mood fluctuating between slight relief and abject terror.
  
  A shadow fell over him. A shoji slid silently open and Hori turned. A figure dressed in white kimono and bearing two white-corded swords in his sash stood there looking at him fiercely.
  
  "Hori Narimitsu-san?"
  
  Hori fell back. "Who are you?"
  
  "Matsudaira Konnosuke, Magistrate of Miyako," Goemon responded stepping fully into the light. "I will arrest you. For the murder of Ito Shinichi."
  
  "No. No, I did not do it. She did. The bitch. Ito Haruko ..."
  
  "And for the rape and kidnapping of peaceful citizens of the Empire."
  
  Panting heavily, Hori stared at his nemesis.
  
  "How do you know? The woman, your spy is it?" He rose to his feet slowly cocking his head, and a crafty look came and went in his face.
  
  "So you came with your minions to arrest me, eh?"
  
  "Only myself," Matsudaira said mildly.
  
  Hori grinned triumphantly. "Kill him! Kill him!" Hori called out loud. The panels of the fusuma burst open and the three members of his gang appeared through them. Two brandished swords and the third carried a massive wooden pole. They interposed themselves between their master and his pursuer. The pole whistled down in a great overhead blow at Matsudaira's elegantly topknotted head. He slipped aside and drew his own sword. The blade flashed in the light. He blocked the thrust of the bulky kidnapper and cut at his face, then reversed the blow and cut kesa giri--crosswise from shoulder to hip--at the second man beside him. The sledge came up again as Matsudaira drew his short sword, reversed, with his left and hammered the pommel into the sledge wielder's throat. The man squeaked and dropped his weapon. Matsudaira took a step forward and stabbed both his blades, crossing them in front of his chest. The burly kidnapper gurgled and a gush of blood appeared at the corners of his mouth. The one cut across the chest clutched at his spilling guts and barely noticed the short blade embedded in his kidney. Matsudaira pulled out both blades smoothly and spun around. The burly kidnapper fell to his knees then to his face as his heart pumped blood out in a fountain from the deep stab to the great artery that led to his heart.
  
  The pole wielder stopped scrabbling for his weapon and drew a knife instead. He clasped it to his hip, blade forward, supported by both hands and charged forward. Matsudaira's blades whistled and cut an X-shaped cut across the man's belly. Matsudaira slipped aside and his last attacker tripped on his spilling greyish-bloody guts and fell to the floor. The knife blade dug into the resistant tatami.
  
  Matsudaira spun around again and faced Hori. His white robe was still immaculate, and only his sword blades dripped blood. He raised a quizzical eyebrow and advanced. Hori raised his own blade and tried a feeble salute. He thrust hopelessly in chudan morote uchi, both hands on the hilt. Matsudaira parried the thrust with a stop thrust of his longer blade. He continued to thrust in a circular bind and lift which twitched the blade from Hori's nervous fingers. The tip of his katan stopped an inch from Hori's belly. "I shall not do it," he said. "You shall!"
  
  Hori fell to his knees, his face white with terror.
  
  Matsudaira looked at the disarmed samurai. "Your interrogation would be a lengthy affair," he said. "Painful, too. For you and for those who had come under your hand and whom we will have to make official inquiries for. The end would be the same."
  
  Hori licked his lips, then straightened his back. He was, after all, a samurai. "May I ask you to be my second?" he asked politely.
  
  "No." Matsudaira shook his head. "I cannot countenance you escaping justice. Before anything, I want a full confession, including the names of the recipients of your ... services. We may be able to recover them quietly."
  
  Hori nodded, his head barely shaking. He knelt in place among the dead as Matsudaira watched. Matsudaira found writing implements in the room and Hori, his hand steady, wrote for a long time in his precise clerk's hand, sealing each sheet with his red seal. He was finished.
  
  Matsudaira read the confession. "You do not confess to your master's murder," he noted.
  
  "It was not I," Hori insisted. Matsudaira merely nodded.
  
  Hori bared his torso and tucked the sleeves of his kimono under his knees. He looked at the short sword in his hands. His lips firmed and he positioned the point on the left side of his abdomen. His eyes unfocused as his grip on the blade firmed. He pushed the point deeply in with a grunt, then moved it in a horizontal cut across his stomach. Grunting sounds came from his mouth mingled with blood. His eyes stared, incredulous at the pain though his iron will kept his hand steady. Matsudaira looked on impassively. There was a sudden blur of motion. Jiro's large blade whispered soundly through the air and struck at Hori's neck. His head rolled from his shoulder in a gout of blood while his torso fell forward and the short blade hit the tatami.
  
  "I could not let him die like that, pig though he was." Jiro mumbled.
  
  "I heard you moving outside. Did you find the woman?"
  
  "No. She has disappeared. I was delayed by the puppy."
  
  "Ah," Matsudaira smiled. "Uemura? That too would have been an odd business. He was involved in a number of robberies we think. Thank you. Embarrassing having warriors engaged in illicit activities. It makes the commoners think we are no different than themselves. We must find the woman though." He collected his papers and both men left the room. Behind them, blood dripped steadily and wet the foundations of the building.