The Monk’s Ledger

Ink weighs down the page,

names fade but their debts remain,

rain keeps the score clean.

Rain writes its own scripture when it falls long enough. The drops struck the inn’s roof in uneven syllables, as if deciding which sins deserved to be remembered. I listened while I wrote. The ledger lay open before me, its pages absorbing ink the way old wounds accept salt.

The woman who kept the inn placed a bowl of hot stones at my feet. A kindness. Kindness is a form of investment; she expected nothing in return, which meant she expected everything.

“You’ll stay the night, Reverend?” she asked.

Her voice carried fatigue in the joints, but not in the breath. Survivors sound like that.

“For as long as the rain finds me,” I said.

She nodded and left me to my ledger.

The candle guttered. Ink spread, a dark seed flowering in the shape of a name. The name had been attached to a man yesterday. Today it lay quieter on the page. I recorded the reason, the location, the debt. I do not record judgment. Only balance.

Thunder pressed close. The door slid open without warning. Three samurai entered, dripping and loud. Always loud. Men convinced of their purpose need the volume to hear themselves.

“Monk,” the leader said, as if identifying a tool on a shelf.

“Yes,” I said, not lifting my head.

“Have you seen a courier pass this way? Takeda colors. Alone.”

Many men passed that way. Most of them alone, even when walking in groups.

“I see many things,” I said.

He stepped closer until the scent of wet armor filled my breath.

“Good,” he said. “I want you to tell me which ones matter.”

I looked up. His hand rested on his sword in the habitual way men do when they cannot think of anything helpful. His face held the smooth arrogance of someone who had never been betrayed badly enough to learn humility.

“I sell prayers,” I said. “Not maps.”

He grunted, disappointed that he had not frightened me. Fear is a currency. Men feel cheated when you refuse to spend it.

He slammed the table before walking away. The candle trembled. I steadied it, then returned to my writing. They would be dead by morning. I wrote their descriptions in the margins for convenience.

The woman returned with tea, bowed, and left when she saw my expression. She recognized the look of someone counting debts that did not belong to him. Sensible.

I had almost finished the page when the door hit the wall with a frantic crack. A young man stumbled in, clutching his side. Blood seeped between his fingers the way water finds cracks in old stone.

“Reverend— please—”

He collapsed. I moved slower than I could have. He would not have lived even if I had flown. These things must be accepted early in one’s profession.

I rolled him onto his back. A courier’s sash slipped from his cloak. Takeda red. The color of loyalty, or the color loyalty produces when it is cut open.

A sealed letter protruded from his belt. I took it before the men outside smelled purpose.

It was addressed to Ayame.

Of course.

The courier coughed once, a small dying protest.

“You ran well,” I told him. There is no comfort in the words, but men like hearing them anyway.

He swallowed nothing. His eyes closed. The ink on the ledger page dried.

I slipped the letter into my sleeve.

The three samurai from earlier returned moments later.

“What happened?” the leader demanded.

“He arrived,” I said. “He left.”

“Left?”

“Yes,” I said. “Left his body here. It will cool soon. Help yourselves.”

They dragged him out with a roughness that revealed their intentions. I did not stop them. Death does not require dignity to do its work.

When the door shut, I opened the courier’s letter. The seal cracked like a knuckle.

Ayame’s handwriting was clean, which was suspicious. People in danger write messier. She must have been measured even in fear.

The temple is no longer safe.
Move the children through the cedar pass.
If Ren lives, tell him I have decided.
If he dies, tell the truth to no one.

I folded it back into silence.

The truth is too expensive to sell at market rate.

I closed the ledger, but not before adding one more line:
Courier. Name unknown. Carried a message worth more than his life. Balance pending.

The rain paused, then resumed with a clearer voice. Outside, the three samurai drank and boasted, mistaking delay for victory. Their matchlock clicked as they cleaned it. It would fail them. The mountain had already decided that.

Later, when the rain eased into a whisper, they followed the wrong trail into the dark. I watched them go. Their shadows dragged behind like unwilling students.

They did not return.

I added three more entries to the ledger before the ink cooled.

When the inn drifted into sleep, I stepped outside. The night smelled of pine and old secrets. I turned toward the path that led to Ayame’s house.

Ren would need to hear what had begun. And what had ended.

Balance is only a rumor until someone pays.

I walked.

The ledger grew heavier in my sleeve.