text: The mansion, when found, lay behind a rotting, crumbling wall. The gate was uncharacteristically open, showing a vista of desolation and lost grandeur. Jiro stepped inside. The garden that met his eyes was full of melancholy and the signs of genteel decay. It also contained a dead man, face down in the dirt, his blood pooling around him. Jiro explored cautiously. There were several more bodies. One of them groaned and muttered something. Jiro rolled him over. His belly had been gashed, and his entrails were spilling out.
  
  "Water... water," the ruffian begged.
  
  "You will die of it," Jiro cautioned.
  
  The man laughed rackingly. "What d'ye think I'm doin' now, eh? Get me some water. Sake is even better."
  
  Jiro rooted in the mess, only some of it made by the attackers, whoever they were, the rest the result of the piggish habits of the inhabitants, and found a filthy bottle half full of some liquid that smelled alcoholic. The wounded man grabbed at the bottle as Jiro knelt by him. The samurai jerked it out of reach.
  
  "What happened here?"
  
  The wounded man eyed the sake bottle hungrily, clutching at his stomach.
  
  "Bastard, I'm dying."
  
  "What happened?"
  
  "Yamabushi attacked us."
  
  "Why?"
  
  "A drink, you animal!"
  
  "You'll die with the first swallow. Why?"
  
  "We've been competing with them for women and for territory."
  
  "There was a woman here..."
  
  "Some woman, too!" The man's eyes lit up in memory. "They took her. She was a first-class bitch from the Gion area."
  
  "Where did they take her?"
  
  "How should I know? They are heading south, that's all I know. I swear it. South. Maybe to Koya-san... The bottle—give me the bottle; that's all I know..." The wounded bully was sobbing now.
  
  Jiro handed him the bottle, and he gulped several times gratefully, then gave a great cry and expired. Jiro rose and headed south. The flies tended to their own, buzzing happily.