The Burglaresses
Kikuchi Kan
I
This story takes place sometime in the twelfth century, in the days that Fujiwara-no-Takafusa, one of the few to have the Emperor’s ear, was a mere sheriff’s assistant. A house in Shirakawa had been broken into. One of the family’s retainers, a brave young man, suited up and rushed out of the house, but it was so dark outside that he could not tell the people outside friend from foe. As he looked around in confusion, however, he realized that all the townsfolk had fled for their safety, and that those surrounding him were the thieves. Furthermore, they took him for one of their own and spoke to him. There was no way he would be able to take them all on, he reasoned, and so he decided to play the part of a thief to its conclusion and accompanied them to where they would divide up the loot. The retainer busied himself with memorizing each man’s face as well as the location of their hideout. With a chest full of the night’s bounty they made their way to an alcove near the southern gate of the palace and there spoils were awarded to each man. The retainer was also given a hemp bag to hold his share. The biggest share was awarded to a graceful man of medium build who looked to be about twenty-four or five. He wore a breastplate, gauntlets, and had a sword at his side. He wore a noble’s robes, his sleeves fastened with scarlet threads. Though he issued a number of instructions, otherwise he would diligently do as he was told. Once all the loot had been allocated, all the thieves went their separate ways. The retainer decided that he would follow this assumed leader, and after giving him a head start, began tailing him as nonchalantly as he could. He proceeded four blocks south and then turned east. The retainer had a clear glimpse of the leader them, but lost sight of him at the chief sheriff’s residence. The last the retainer saw of the thief was at the west gate of the sheriff’s home.
II
Though he conducted a search of the surrounding area, the retainer found no trace of his onetime accomplice. Only a truly foolish thief would hide in the home of the sheriff, and as it was quite late at night, there was no way to carry on the search. The retainer withdrew in disappointment but came back early the next morning to investigate the west gate of the residence. And lo and behold, there were faint traces of blood on the fence. The thief must have hidden himself there. The retainer returned to his master and updated him on the situation. As the master of the house was rather friendly with the sheriff, he left immediately to discuss the matter with him. The sheriff, shocked, ordered a search of his estate. They discovered that the trail of blood continued to a small building on the property that had been built to hold a wagon, but was instead being used to house the maids. They suspected that one of the maids was hiding the thief and so interrogated them one by one. The most senior of the ladies-in-waiting, however, did not appear; apparently she was under the weather. Once she was told that they would carry her out if need be, she reluctantly emerged from the building. She was searched and blood was found on her sleeves. A further search of the building discovered a hiding place beneath the floorboards stocked with several items. Among them were, as the retainer had alleged, a robe with scarlet-threaded sleeves and a sword. An old mask was also discovered. It seemed that that was what the lady-in-waiting would wear to disguise her sex and command her thieves. No matter how they badgered her she would not confess to the crime. The sheriff doubtless sought a confession as to apologize for the fact that his maid had been moonlighting as a thief. At around noon she was taken to the prison. It was quite a sight. In those days, ladies of renown would go out with their bodies and most of their faces hidden from sight, but she was afforded no such luxury. Underneath was a slender lady of no more than twenty-seven or eight, beautiful in both hair and countenance.
III
Here is another tale of lady thieves. When it happened is unknown. There was once an unemployed samurai (let loose from his contract with a noble family, not one of the layabouts of later generations). He was tall, about thirty. He cut a striking figure with his beard, which bore a slight tinge of red. One evening, as he was walking through the capital, a courtesan called out to him from a second-story window (the same behavior you see today goes back centuries).
“Can I help you?” asked the samurai.
“Hear me out?” she said. “My door’s closed, but all you have to do is give it a little push. Why don’t you come on in?”
The samurai thought this unusual, but he decided to enter the house anyway. The courtesan came down to meet him. “Close the door behind you,” she said, returning upstairs. When the samurai reached the top of the stairs, the courtesan pulled him past a curtain of bamboo (for in olden times, a woman’s room would be divided into living space and bedroom by hanging a sheet of bamboo). The samurai turned to face her. She was a beautiful, charming woman who couldn’t have been more than twenty. No man could remain stalwart in the face of such temptation and so they made love. At first the samurai had questioned why there was such a large house with only one person living in it, but his intimacy with the woman drove such questions from his mind. The sun set as he slept. Once night had fallen, there came a rapping at the gate. Since there was nobody to answer the door, the samurai got up and went downstairs. At the door were two men who looked to be samurai, a courtly lady, and a maid. After the samurai let them in, they immediately got to work: they closed the shutters and stoked the kitchen fires. Before long they had a meal prepared, which was served to the courtesan and her guest in fine dishes.
Something was troubling the samurai. When he had first arrived, he had shut and bolted the front gate. And the courtesan shouldn’t have had any way to contact anyone outside. And yet these callers had brought enough food for both the woman and her unannounced guest. The samurai did not quite understand what was going on, but he was hungry, so he set the matter aside and dug in. The courtesan, paying no mind to what her male companion might thing, ate just as freely. Once they were finished, the courtly lady tidied up and then left with the other callers. After they were gone, the courtesan had her samurai bolt the gate behind them and then he joined her upstairs, where they again made love.
IV
The samurai spent the night with this mystery of a woman, and in the morning there was another knock at the gate. The courtesan had her guest answer it. The several people at the gate were different from last night’s posse, but their actions were largely the same: they opened the shutters, tidied up around the house, and served a breakfast of porridge and rice cakes for the lady and her guest. This was how the samurai spent the next several days: amorous encounters with his courtesan punctuated by various gaggles of servants. The courtesan asked if her samurai did not have something he ought to be doing, and when he answered that he had, she swiftly procured for him a fine horse and several servants clad in fine silk.
Then the courtesan showed her guest to a small room in the house that appeared to be little more than a closet. It was fully stocked with several outfits. She told him to wear whatever he liked. The samurai dressed himself to the nines, and, in the company of the servants, set off on his borrowed horse. It was a faithful beast, and the servants attended to him with an almost religious zeal. Upon his return, he said nothing of neither the horse nor the servants, but at once they were gone. The samurai spent the next three luxurious weeks like this in the house, knowing no discomfort.
And then, one day, the courtesan said to the samurai, “You must quite enjoy this place, given how long it is that you have stayed. I daresay you would accompany me here in even in death as you do in life.”
“My life is yours to command,” replied the samurai, “for I can think of nothing but you and our life together.”
It was with great delight that the courtesan led the samurai into a room within the house. There she tied a rope to his hair and bound him against a whipping-post, his back facing outwards. She donned the samurai’s robe and cap and gave the man’s naked back eighty lashes.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“A little sore,” he replied.
This appeared to satisfy the woman, and she attended to his wounds, and fed him. After three days, when the scars on his back had faded, she took him back to the same room, tied him to the whipping-post, and gave him another eighty lashes. This time the lashings were more severe: the samurai’s back looked like a bloody slab of raw meat.
V
The merciless whipping continued. “Have you still endurance?” asked the courtesan.
“I’ve a little left,” the samurai replied, his face unchanged. The courtesan was more proud than before, and this time she tended to her samurai for five days before again strapping him to the whipping-post. This time his back was to the post.
This, too, he endured, and once again the courtesan treated his wounds. On a night ten days later, when the marks from the whip had faded, the woman brought to the samurai a quantity of accoutrements, including a silk robe, a marvelous bow and quiver, greaves, and boots. She dressed him herself.
“Now, you will go to the gate of the palace and there you will quietly draw your bowstring. Someone should do the same in response. If you get that response, whistle. Somebody will whistle back. And if some fellows should approach you after that, and ask, ‘Who are you?’ say only, ‘I’m coming’ in reply. Then, you will follow the gang to their meeting place. Do what they tell you to do, and deal with anybody who gets in your way. Once the job is done, fall back to the north of the city. There ought to be further orders for you there. But remember: you will not take a share of the loot.”
Her plan dictated to the samurai in full, the woman set him off.
There were about twenty men like him awaiting the samurai at the palace gate, and standing apart from them one who looked to be the leader. He was pale and slight of stature, but all of the others treated him with respect. Additionally, there were a few dozen of whom appeared to be servants milling around. After the assignments had been distributed, the whole lot of them entered the imperial estate and targeted a large residence. A few men were dispatched to another house to make sure that nobody inside would raise an alarm or try to fight off the thieves. The samurai was one of these. The rest of the gang broke into the estate. The samurai heard movement from inside the house he and his men were guarding, and when a few well-armed men ran out of the house to accost the thieves, the samurai kept them pinned down right there.
VI
Once the estate had been divested of all its valuables, the gang fell back to the north of the city, where the spoils were divided among the men. As his lady had said, the man took nothing.
“I require no loot,” he had told them, “for what I learned tonight was priceless.”
The leader of the thieves nodded silently. He understood.
The gang then went their separate ways. Upon his return to the house, the samurai was greeted with a warm bath and a freshly-prepared meal.
Whenever the samurai took an assignment, he gave no mind to whether or not what he was doing was right; his only thoughts were for his beloved mistress, whose arms it was growing harder and harder to tear himself away from. Ten jobs. Fifteen jobs. He wielded a sword as a housebreaker and a bow as a lookout. He was adept at all roles. And then one day, the woman granted him a key, and told him to go to a spot east of Karasuma and north of Rokkaku where there were five warehouses.
“Use this key,” she said, “on the one north of the southernmost. There are many items within; you may have your pick of the lot. Hire a rickshaw to take you there.”
As the woman had said, when the samurai unlocked the door to the warehouse, it was well stocked with anything he could want. He made liberal use of its contents.
A year passed.
One day the woman seemed unusually forlorn and looked to be on the verge of tears. The samurai asked her what was wrong.
“Sadly, we may have to part ways,” she replied.
“How can this be?”
“It is the way of the world,” she replied.
The samurai thought her words to be nothing more than that, and so he did not pay much attention to them as he set out on his horse with his servants in tow. He spent the night at an inn, thinking to return the next morning, but when he awoke, the horse and the servants had vanished. In shock he returned to the house, but found only long-cold ashes where it had once stood. There was no sign of the maids or servants. The warehouse, too, was a wreck. The samurai remembered now what the woman had said. With the lessons he had learned the samurai made his way as a thief, but eventually he was captured by the authorities. This tale he gave as his confession. He added afterwards that the slight man who acted as the leader of the gang of thieves appeared to be the woman with whom he had spent so many nights.
“Neither of us said a word to that effect when we were together,” said the samurai, “but in retrospect, I think it to be true.”