"The Fire Kimono" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rowland Laura Joh)

MEIREKI YEAR THREE (1657)

They searched all day for Tadatoshi.

All day the fire burned and spread, flames leaping roofs and canals, consuming the city. Etsuko and Egen roamed deep into the Nihonbashi merchant quarter. When night came, the fires lit the sky more brilliantly red than any sunset. Etsuko and Egen stopped to rest in a doorway in an abandoned neighborhood.

“We’ll never find him. We might as well give up,” Egen said, wiping sweat off his face. The fire had heated the winter night; the air was as warm as in summer.

“His father said not to come back without him.” Etsuko opened her cape and fanned herself with her leather helmet.

They gazed at the terrible red sky. They could hear the fire crackling in the distance, smell the black smoke that billowed to the heavens like gigantic, shape-changing demons.

“It’s too dangerous to stay out here,” Egen said. “We tried our best. Let’s go home.”

Tired, hungry, and defeated, Etsuko agreed. She and Egen ran hand in hand past buildings on fire, past fleeing crowds. She struggled to keep up with him as the smoke grew denser. They reached a canal, where hundreds of people blocked the bridge. They were trapped in the mob. Egen’s hand ripped loose from hers. He was lost in the crush. She was alone.

Then Doi miraculously appeared beside her. He pulled her along through the mob. Etsuko sobbed with gratitude that he cared enough about her to save her, even after she’d betrayed him. She heard Egen shouting her name, saw his frantic face in the crowd, his hand waving.

“Egen’s over there!” she said.

Doi plowed past the people who separated him and Etsuko from Egen. The men shoved and fought everyone in their way. When they broke free of the crush, Doi said, “We can’t go home. The fire has already burned down the estate. I saw.”

Etsuko was horrified. “What’s become of everyone?”

“I don’t know,” Doi said.

“The fire’s coming. Where do we go?” Egen said urgently.

Doi led Etsuko and Egen on a mad dash through the inferno. They raced holding hands, their quarrel forgotten, united by the desire to survive. Every neighborhood they traversed was on fire. Tongues of flame shot into masses of people who pushed wheeled chests filled with their possessions. Etsuko, Egen, and Doi climbed over abandoned chests that blocked the gates and intersections. Not until morning did they find refuge.

They fell to their knees, exhausted, inside the Koishikawa district. Edo Castle loomed above a neighborhood of walled samurai estates. The fire had so far spared the district, but men on horseback and ladies in palanquins, accompanied by servants loaded with baggage, moved in processions toward the hills. Firemen wielded pickaxes, tearing down houses at the edge of the district, clearing bare space that the fire couldn’t cross. They’d already leveled a swath littered with ruins.

“We’ll be safe here,” Egen said. His face and Doi’s were black with soot, their clothes charred.

Etsuko coughed up phlegm that tasted like smoke. She felt dizzy and sick from breathing it all night. Doi said, “I’ll climb up that fire-watch tower and see what’s happening.”

When he came back, he said, “Half the city is gone. Yushima, Hongo, Hatchobori, Ishikawajima, Kyobashi, Reiganjima-” His voice broke during his recitation of the districts destroyed. “And the fire is still burning.”

He and Etsuko and Egen wept for Edo and all the people who must have died. But Etsuko hadn’t forgotten the mission that had sent them into hell.

“What about Tadatoshi?” she asked.

“Never mind him,” Doi said, angrily wiping off his tears with his fists. “He’s probably dead.”

Some instinct made Etsuko look into the crowds. She saw, not thirty paces away, Tadatoshi standing against a wall. He wore his swords at his waist. His gaze was lifted toward the flames that rose from the burning city. His face had the same sly, private smile as on that night in the garden. At first Etsuko was astonished to have found him, but then she realized that many people who’d survived the fire had flocked to this small, unburned oasis.

“There he is!” she cried, pointing.

Tadatoshi’s gaze met hers. The sudden anger in his eyes flashed across the space between them, hot as the fires, in the moment before he turned and ran.

Etsuko staggered to her feet. “Let’s catch him! Hurry!”

Egen and Doi followed her. Perhaps they couldn’t think of anything better to do. Tadatoshi raced in and out of the crowds, around corners. The Koishikawa district was home to the officials who tended the shogun’s falcons. The processions included oxcarts laden with cages that contained hawks and eagles. Other birds had escaped. They winged over Etsuko, bound for the hills. She lost sight of Tadatoshi, but Egen called, “He went in there!”

He and Etsuko and Doi burst through a gate into a courtyard outside a mansion. The sudden quiet rang in Etsuko’s ears. Doi put a finger to his lips. The three tiptoed around the mansion. At the rear were outbuildings. Etsuko heard a scrabbling noise from one. She and the men peered through its open door into a kitchen. Tadatoshi crouched, blowing into a brazier. Flames licked the coals.

That he would set a fire after so much of Edo had already burned!

Doi shouted Tadatoshi’s name. Tadatoshi leaped up and backed away as Doi and Egen moved toward him. His eyes danced with manic light. He grinned and Etsuko saw, in his hands, a ceramic jar.

“No!” she cried. “Look out!”

Tadatoshi flung kerosene from the jar onto the brazier. The flames exploded into a huge, red-hot blast. Etsuko, Doi, and Egen screamed and reeled backward from the fire. Tadatoshi giggled wildly. He kicked the brazier, scattering the coals, and dashed kerosene around the room. More fires ignited.

“Help!” Doi cried.

He writhed on the floor, his cape on fire. Etsuko beat the flames out with her gloved hands. Egen pulled Doi to his feet, yelling, “We have to get out of here!”

They and Etsuko ran from the kitchen. It burst into flames that the wind blew high and far. Before they were out the gate, the mansion had caught fire. Sparks leaped to the other houses. In a mere instant the whole district was ablaze.

“We’ll go to the castle,” Doi said. “It’s the most protected place in town.”

But as they and the crowds hastened uphill, the fire overtook them. The streets became tunnels with walls of flames that spewed in every direction. Women shrieked as their clothes and hair caught fire. They flailed their arms, whirled, and dropped. The flames stripped them naked and bald, blackened their skin. Etsuko retched at the sight and smell of flesh burning, of blood boiling.

“Turn back!” Doi shouted.

He and Egen hauled Etsuko in the opposite direction. Coughing and gasping, they trampled people who’d succumbed to the smoke, over bodies burned to the bone. They ran past an intersection where hundreds of men stood massed together, arms raised, forming a human wall against the fire in a desperate attempt to hold it back and let their families escape. The fire washed over them like a brilliant orange tidal wave.

Doi spied some abandoned water buckets. He snatched them up and flung water over Etsuko, Egen, and himself. As they ran onward, the water steamed off them, protecting them while other people burned and died.

“We have to get to the river,” Egen panted. “It’s our only hope.”

When they reached the waterfront, the lone bridge across the Sumida River was already packed with crowds, the warehouses already burning. People swarmed the wharves and docks. Men and children, and mothers with babies in arms, samurai and commoners, jumped into the river. The crowd swept Etsuko, Egen, and Doi off the dock. Etsuko cried out as they plunged into freezing water where thousands of heads bobbed. The river was so thick with humanity that she could barely move. Arms struck and legs kicked her. People sank and drowned. Somehow Doi, Etsuko, and Egen broke through the jam, into the deep middle of the river, in the fast-moving current.

Doi submerged, crying, “I don’t know how to swim.”

Neither did Etsuko. Egen grabbed her and Doi, locking his arms around their necks. Holding their heads above the water, he lay on his back and kicked. Etsuko and Doi floated with him. As the current carried them along, Doi pointed up at the city and cried, “Edo Castle is burning.”

Etsuko was aghast to see that its roofs were sheets of flame, the tall, square tower of the keep burning like a giant torch. “That’s from the fire Tadatoshi set. If only we’d found him sooner!”

An eternity later, Etsuko and her companions crawled, half dead from cold and fatigue, onto the riverbank near a fishing village. The villagers gave them food, shelter, and warm clothes. Two days afterward, they made their way back to Edo.

The city lay in ruins. Most of it had burned to the ground. Etsuko, Egen, and Doi walked in horrified awe through streets littered with smoking debris. Charred skeletons lay amid the wreckage. Survivors wandered, searching for the remains of their homes, mourning the dead. Orphaned children cried and called for their mothers. The air was frigid. All over the city, people huddled in miserable, shivering groups.

Etsuko felt an overwhelming sorrow, helplessness, and anger. “How many deaths must be Tadatoshi’s fault?”

“Too many,” Egen said grimly.

Doi said, “If the little demon is still alive, I swear I’ll teach him a lesson. That is, if I ever find him again.”

Snow began to fall, white as ashes. Etsuko craved action as well as revenge. “I think I know where to look.”

The city was unrecognizable, but Etsuko had a good sense of direction. She led the men to the place that had once been Koishikawa. Soldiers were unloading bundles from handcarts and passing out food to the starved crowds. Among these Etsuko saw Tadatoshi. He was gazing upon the black timbers and scattered roof tiles of the house he’d set on fire. He’d come through the disaster completely unscathed.

Finding him again was no miracle. Etsuko’s suspicion that Tadatoshi would return to the scene of his crime had proved correct.

“Hey!” Doi stalked over to Tadatoshi. “Come to look at what you did?”

Tadatoshi smiled his strange smile. “Wasn’t the fire the most exciting thing you’ve ever seen? Especially when the castle burned?”

Not only did he have no remorse; he wanted credit!

“‘Exciting’?” Egen stared at Tadatoshi. “You killed thousands of people, and you enjoyed it. You’re mad!”

Tadatoshi shrugged. “What are you going to do about it?”

“We’re going to report you to the authorities,” Egen said.

“Go ahead.” Tadatoshi sniggered. “I’m a Tokugawa. You people are nobodies. They’ll never believe you.”

He was right, Etsuko realized.

“Then we’ll make you pay!” exclaimed Doi.

“You’ll have to catch me first.” Tadatoshi turned and ran.

“Don’t let him get away this time!” Etsuko cried.

As she and Doi and Egen pursued him, she shouted, “That boy set the fire that burned down the castle! Stop him!”

Soldiers and crowds only stared, too numb to react or thinking she was crazy. Tadatoshi led Etsuko and her companions on a chase across intact neighborhoods where people broke into shops and fought over the loot. He dashed up a road to the hills. Etsuko strained to keep him in sight among the thousands trudging away from what they’d lost. Night fell. Etsuko, Egen, and Doi were exhausted. Tadatoshi looked over his shoulder, then split from the crowd.

“He’s going into the woods,” Egen panted.

“Hurry!” Etsuko cried.

They forged up the trail he’d taken, between cedar trees. It was so dark they could hardly see his loping figure. High in the hills, they stopped near a torii gate, the entrance to a shrine. Here, above the smoky haze that still shrouded the city, the cold air was clear, the moon bright. Etsuko saw Tadatoshi flopped on the ground. She and her comrades staggered over to him. His chest heaved as he stared at them. His eyes shone with fear and defiance.

“We’ve got you now,” Doi said.

“What should we do with him?” Egen asked.

The answer came from some deep, steady, unforgiving place inside Etsuko. “We’re going to kill him.”

Doi gaped. “I can’t. He’s my master.”

“He’s an arsonist and a murderer,” Etsuko said. “He deserves to die.”

“Whatever he’s done, killing him would be a disgrace to my honor,” Doi protested.

“We must kill him,” Etsuko said, “or he’ll keep setting fires wherever he goes.”

“I can’t do it, either,” Egen said. “When I took my religious vows, I swore never to take a life.”

“How many more lives will he take when he sets his next fire? Who but us can protect innocent people from him?” Angry at her comrades, Etsuko said, “If you won’t do it, I will.”

She reached over to Doi, yanked the long sword at his waist from its sheath, and swung it at Tadatoshi.

The boy screamed. A natural coward, he cringed instead of drawing his own weapon and defending himself. Doi shouted, “No!” and grabbed her wrist. Tadatoshi jumped up and fled.

Etsuko wrenched free of Doi, the sword in her possession, and chased Tadatoshi. Doi and Egen ran after them into the woods. Etsuko bumped into trees and tripped over fallen branches. She followed the sound of Tadatoshi’s panting and sobbing. In the moonlight that penetrated the foliage she saw glimpses of him, flickering in and out of view.

“Don’t lose him!” Doi shouted.

“Where did he go?” came Egen’s voice.

The men crashed through the woods, cursing as they tripped and fell. Tadatoshi sped past Etsuko. She grabbed at him but missed. Doi hurtled out of the darkness and shouted, “I’ve got him!” He and Tadatoshi fell together with a thud that shook the earth. Tadatoshi screamed and struggled. He began hitting Doi, who punched him and ordered, “Hold him still.”

Egen came panting up beside Etsuko and said, “What are we going to do?”

“We have to kill him,” Doi said with sorrowful reluctance. “What choice do we have?”

Tadatoshi fought and sobbed. Doi grunted, swore, and tumbled off the boy. He curled up, holding his groin. He shouted, “You devil! Come back here!”

Etsuko and Egen charged after Tadatoshi. She heard him fall but didn’t see him until she and Egen tripped over his body. A murderous temper possessed Etsuko. She hacked at Tadatoshi with the sword. She wanted to strike him as many blows as the number of people he’d killed. She screamed while he screamed. Egen joined in, consumed by the same urge. He punched and kicked Tadatoshi. Doi grabbed the sword from Etsuko and slashed at Tadatoshi until his screams stopped.

Etsuko, Doi, and Egen stood over his body. The forest was silent except for their rapid, fevered breathing. As her temper cooled, Etsuko realized what they’d done. She began to cry.

The men embraced her. Doi said, “Don’t be upset. It’s over.” His cheek against hers was wet with his own tears. Egen said, “We did what we had to. It’s all right, Etsuko.”

The sound of footsteps crunching through dried leaves silenced her sobs. “Someone’s coming. We have to get out of here. Hurry!”

They ran far from the scene of their crime before they stopped in a clearing. “Swear that you’ll never tell what we did,” Doi said, extending his hand palm-down to Egen and Etsuko.

Etsuko laid her hand atop Doi’s. Egen pressed his hand onto hers. “I swear,” they all said.

They returned to the city and joined the thousands of homeless people who drifted around, searching for family, friends, and places they’d known. They ate stew cooked in camps set up by the government, but relief was inadequate. Every day they saw more dead bodies, of people who’d frozen or starved. At night they slept bundled together in quilts they’d stolen from an abandoned house. They hardly spoke; they couldn’t look at one another. They were too ridden by their shared guilt.

Days later, Etsuko learned from a stranger that Hana was looking for her. She and her friends rushed to the tent city. When she found Hana, Egen and Doi walked away: They were too ashamed to face anyone they knew. Etsuko broke into shuddering, uncontrollable sobs.

Hana exclaimed, “There’s blood all over you!”

Etsuko and her friends hadn’t washed Tadatoshi’s blood off their clothes; there’d been no place to wash. When Hana asked what had happened, Etsuko refused to tell and became violently ill. For days she lay in the tent, so nauseated she couldn’t keep food down. She thought her sickness was a punishment from the gods.

Not until a month later did she learn its real cause.

By then she and Hana were reunited with her parents, at her family home that had survived the fire. Etsuko hadn’t seen Egen. Maybe he didn’t know where she was, and she couldn’t go looking for him. Her parents wouldn’t let her outside because Edo was a chaotic, dangerous place. She sat in her room and prayed, Please let him come!

One day her mother called, “Etsuko! We have visitors!”

Her heart rejoiced; it must be Egen and Doi. When she went to the parlor she found Doi-sitting with his parents and hers. Doi’s father said, “Now that the fire is over, we’d like to set a date for our children’s wedding.”

“That would be fine with us,” said Etsuko’s father.

Etsuko was horrified. She saw in Doi’s eyes that he still wanted her and was willing to forget the past. If only Egen would appear and save her from this loveless union!

Doi’s mother regarded Etsuko with a suspicious, penetrating gaze. “Come closer. Give me a look at you.”

Etsuko obeyed. The woman studied her swollen figure, then announced what Etsuko had been hiding. “You’re with child.”

Her parents exclaimed in appalled shock. Doi looked stunned. His father said, “Since Etsuko is no longer a virgin, we must break the engagement.”

Etsuko was so ashamed that she ran sobbing from the house. Doi followed her into the alley. “Is it Egen’s?” he demanded.

She couldn’t answer; she didn’t have to. Doi looked ready to cry himself. “Does he know?”

“No. I didn’t have a chance to tell him.”

“Well, you won’t ever have one.” Anger darkened Doi’s face. “He’s left town. He said he’s not coming back. Because he can’t stand to see me, or you, ever again.”

As Etsuko wept, heartbroken because Egen had deserted her and would never marry her as she’d prayed he would, Doi shouted, “It serves you right! You’re nothing but a whore!”

He slapped her face so hard that she fell. Then he walked out of her life.

That night Etsuko miscarried the child. She grieved, for it was all she’d had of her beloved. Her parents were upset because she was still damaged goods. What man would marry her now?

Six months later, her parents heard of a man who might be willing. They took her to meet him, and Etsuko’s heart sank. He was at least ten years older than she, and so severe! Even worse, from her parents’ standpoint, he was a ronin who operated a martial arts school. What a grievous comedown from the match they’d planned for her with Doi! But he made a proposal of marriage, and her parents accepted, eager for him to take their wayward daughter off their hands.

Etsuko had no choice but to marry the ronin. Her parents disowned her, and she lost contact with everyone and everything familiar. She swallowed her grief and pride, accustomed herself to living in near poverty, and worked hard at keeping house for her husband. She never told him about the murder. She bore him a son, who eventually became the shogun’s second-in-command.

“Now you know why I couldn’t tell you the truth,” Sano’s mother said.

Shocked beyond words by her tale, Sano turned away from her, rubbed his hand down his mouth, and gazed into space.

“Egen and Doi and I killed Tadatoshi,” she said. “We were all responsible, but I was the most.”

Reiko had known the gist of the story, albeit not the details, Sano thought. He should have listened to his wife.

Now he knew why the real tutor had skipped town, and why Colonel Doi was bitter toward Etsuko after all these years. Sano had been right about Doi having a hand in the murder. Perhaps Doi’s guilt had motivated his heroism during the relief efforts after the fire. Sano also knew he could never prove his mother’s innocence, for she was as guilty as he’d ever feared. Her hands that had nursed him during his childhood had once taken a life in cold blood. But he felt sick and shaken for a reason even more personal.

His earlier discoveries had contradicted facts he’d taken for granted about his family background, but his mother had just demolished the foundations of his self. He wasn’t only the son of a poor but upstanding ronin; he was the son of a fallen woman, a murderess. His emotions in turmoil, he couldn’t separate what he thought about the fact that she was guilty of the murder from what he felt about the rest of her confession.

“How could you?” he said, turning on his mother, venting his emotions in fury.

She extended her hands, palms up. “It was right.”

Her fear and weakness had vanished. Telling her story had given her a calm, dignified strength. But it had undone Sano.

“You not only had an affair with the tutor, you bore his child,” he said. Hana knew that part of the story, if not the rest; that explained her reluctance to talk. “Then you married my father and pretended it never happened. You hid your crime from him. Our whole life was a lie.”

Her secret was a skeleton that had been buried beneath the surface of their existence while Tadatoshi’s bones lay in his hidden grave. Those bones had conveyed messages from the past, and repercussions for the future, to Sano. They were indeed oracle bones.

“How can I not be angry?” Sano demanded.

His mother rose, undaunted by his outburst. “It wasn’t a lie. Your father and I were as happy together as most married couples. He was a decent man, and I served him faithfully until he died.”

That sounded meager compared with her passionate love for Egen-and Sano’s own for Reiko. Even in the heat of his rage Sano could pity his mother. He could begin to see her life from her point of view.

“You gave up everything,” he said, shaking his head in wonder. “Your life of luxury, your samurai status, your honor.” He was appalled by her disgrace and knew she must have felt the same. “How could you bear it?”

“There were compensations.” She laid her hand against his cheek and smiled. Her eyes brimmed with love. “I had you.”

Sano resisted her affection. He was even more upset by the truth about his origins. He was as much a result of his mother’s illicit affair as if he’d been the fruit of it. If not for her illegitimate, miscarried child, she would never have married his father, and Sano would never have been born. He owed his existence to the affair-and to the crime that had divided her from the man she’d loved. And he began to see what else he owed to his mother the murderess.

He’d always wondered where he’d gotten his inclination to put himself in jeopardy for the sake of a cause, his belief that justice was all-important, even if it required actions that society disapproved of or the law forbade. His nature didn’t come from his father, who’d adhered strictly to Bushido’s code of conformity to social mores and discouraged individual initiative in his son. Sano had long ago decided that his rogue tendencies were entirely his own creation. But now, as his mother dropped her hand from his face and he looked into her eyes, he saw their source.

She said, “When you were a boy, I watched you growing into the same sort of person I was when I was young. I feared you would get in trouble and ruin your life the way I did mine. Well, I was wrong.” She beamed at Sano. “My son the chamberlain!” Her smile turned rueful. “But I was right, too.”

Sano couldn’t quite smile at the memory of the times he’d stubbornly pursued murderers and delivered them to justice, risking his position and his life to uphold his personal definition of honor.

“Perhaps I’m lucky that you take after me,” his mother said. “Because you can understand why I had to kill Tadatoshi and why I convinced Doi and Egen to help me.”

To his credit and discredit, Sano did. Tadatoshi the arsonist had been the greatest criminal of all time, his death toll thousands of times greater than any killer Sano had ever faced. “Yes,” Sano admitted. “If I’d been in your position, I would have done the same as you did. I’d have taken the law into my own hands, the consequences be damned.”

More revelations astounded Sano. Was his mother’s partnership with Doi and Egen not a precedent for Sano’s partnership with Reiko and their missions into shady territory outside the law? Many people wondered why Sano put up with a wife as strong-willed and venturesome as Reiko; he’d often wondered himself. Now he saw that his acceptance of her had to do with more than love.

He must have unconsciously perceived his mother’s true nature, and she was his standard for what he wanted in a mate. His affinity for an unconventional woman had been bred in the womb. There was no part of his life that his mother and her actions hadn’t influenced.

But it didn’t matter that he understood what she’d done. His wasn’t the opinion that counted.

“Can you forgive me?” she asked anxiously.

Sano couldn’t find in himself the capacity to forgive. Emotion choked him; he didn’t trust himself to speak. And his finally learning the story didn’t help his mother. This was his last day to exonerate her, and he couldn’t. He’d always believed the truth would save the innocent, but this time it would damn the guilty.

He cleared his throat and said, “It’s not my forgiveness you need. The shogun will be expecting the final results of my investigation.” So would his enemies, who would pressure the shogun to condemn Sano and his mother. “I don’t know what to say to him.” If the shogun were to hear that she’d killed Tadatoshi because he was an arsonist and a mass murderer, he would think she was trying to justify her crime by slandering his poor dead cousin. “I can hardly tell him your story.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” a voice said behind them. “I, ahh, heard the whole thing.”

Sano and his mother started, turned, and saw the shogun in the doorway. “Your Excellency,” Sano exclaimed, unable to hide his horror that the shogun had come for another visit at the worst possible time. “What a pleasure to see you. I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Obviously not,” the shogun said tartly, “or you and your mother wouldn’t have been having such a, ahh, fascinating conversation.”

“Please come in and sit down,” Sano said. “Have you eaten yet? May I offer you some refreshments?”

Ignoring Sano’s attempt to divert him, the shogun crept into the room. His expression wavered between confusion, shock, and outrage. “She said my cousin set the fire in Koishikawa,” he said, pointing at Sano’s mother. “Is it true?”

She looked from him to Sano, stunned wordless. Sano hurried to reply, “That’s not what she said. You misheard. Now how may I be of service?”

The shogun waved Sano away. “Your mother shall answer my question. Perhaps she is the one person in this entire country who will tell me the straight facts instead of talking in circles.” He turned to her. “Did you really say that my cousin set that fire?”

This time Sano’s mother showed no fear, didn’t cringe. “Yes,” she said with quiet conviction. “I saw him with my own eyes-exactly as you heard me tell my son.”

Sano suppressed a groan. That she’d accused a member of the Tokugawa clan of a capital crime! That she’d committed this act of treason to the shogun’s face! She seemed intent on using the truth to seal her doom.

“You saw him set the fire that burned the castle?” The shogun’s voice rose shrill and loud with appalled incredulity.

“Mother,” Sano said, “let me handle this.”

“Quiet!” the shogun ordered.

“Yes,” Sano’s mother said.

Sano despaired of trying to rescue her from herself. The shogun would call his guards to arrest her, Sano, and their whole family. Sano drew a breath to call his own guards. He braced himself for a fight.

The shogun sank to his knees. His assertiveness crumbled; his complexion turned pale, sickly. Sano was so disconcerted by his lord’s sudden change of mood that he exhaled and hesitated.

“I was in the castle during the Great Fire,” the shogun said in a tremulous, broken voice. “With my mother. We thought we would be safe, until the second day, when the fire started in Koishikawa. It came blazing up the hill.” He shrank into himself; his voice grew thinner and higher as he reverted to the scared little boy he’d been during the disaster.

“The wind blew the fire to the castle. We were in the middle of a sea of flames. They leaped the walls and burned the corridors on top. Then they were raging inside the castle. We hurried to the West Quarter, which was farthest away from the fire. We hid there while the rest of the castle burned.”

His gaze was clouded by the memory of that awful day, by his unforgotten terror. “If our soldiers hadn’t managed to put out the fire before it could reach the West Quarter, my mother and I would have perished.” Outrage cleared his eyes. “The fire that Tadatoshi set virtually destroyed my castle.” Thumping his palm against his chest, the shogun said, “He almost killed me!”

Astonishment struck Sano. The shogun had accepted his mother’s story as the truth. And he cared only about the part of the story that directly concerned himself. Recovering from his first shock, Sano realized that the shogun was behaving completely in character.

“Tadatoshi killed thousands of people,” Sano’s mother said.

The shogun made an impatient, dismissive gesture. “Because of him, I almost died! Even though I didn’t, I was frightened out of my wits!”

Sano’s mother frowned at his self-centeredness. Her lips parted, but Sano silenced her with a glance before she could rebuke the shogun as she had Sano when he’d behaved callously toward other people during his childhood. He floated a question as cautiously as if releasing a butterfly to test the wind.

“Do you understand why my mother and her friends had to kill Tadatoshi?”

“Yes, yes.” The shogun’s head bobbed. “He deserved to die for what he did to me.”

“And you understand that if they hadn’t killed him, he would have continued setting fires?” Sano drove his point into what the shogun would deem the heart of the matter. “His next one might have killed you.”

The shogun pursed his mouth. “Ahh, I hadn’t thought of that.” He sounded awed by his narrow escape. “But yes, you’re right.”

“So you might say that my mother not only punished an arsonist, but she saved your life,” Sano said.

“Yes, indeed!” the shogun exclaimed. Then he said, “What I don’t understand is Colonel Doi. Why did he say she, ahh, kidnapped Tadatoshi and murdered him for money? He knew what really happened to Tadatoshi because he was in on it. Why didn’t he, ahh, just tell me the truth?”

For the same reasons his mother hadn’t wanted to, Sano thought.

Their pledge, and their fear of punishment, had kept them both silent for forty-three years. Doi had counted on her to honor the pledge even after he’d accused her of murder. But that explanation didn’t best suit Sano’s purposes.

“Doi didn’t want anyone to know he was a coward who hesitated to kill an arsonist,” Sano said. “He didn’t want to admit that my mother, a mere girl, was the one brave and virtuous enough to do what needed to be done.”

Nodding, the shogun turned to her. “Yes, you were brave.” Admiration filled his voice. “In fact, you are a heroine!”

Sano’s mother looked mortified by the praise. She gave Sano a glance that said she disapproved of his manipulating the shogun but knew she was in no position to object. She knelt, bowed, and said humbly, “You’re too kind, Your Excellency.”

Sano pressed his advantage. “Will you pardon my mother?”

“Yes, of course.” The shogun declared, “I pronounce her innocent of all evildoing and set her free.”

The turn of events left Sano breathless. Just like that, his fortunes had changed. What part did it owe to the divine power of the truth, and what to the force of human selfishness?

But the shogun’s mood turned peevish. “Don’t be too relieved, Chamberlain Sano. Your mother is out of trouble, but you are still under suspicion in the, ahh, killing of the witness in my cousin’s murder case. Or had you forgotten?”

Sano hadn’t, although he’d hoped the shogun had. “I have news about that. The man who was murdered wasn’t Egen the tutor. He was an impostor.”

As Sano explained how the discovery had been made, his mother’s features went slack with astonishment. This was the first she’d heard of it; Sano hadn’t had a chance to tell her sooner. “He wasn’t Egen,” she whispered. “I should have known.”

“An actor, fancy that,” the shogun said. “But you still could have killed him.” He rose and pointed his finger at Sano. “And don’t try to wiggle out of trouble! I’m tired of people playing me for a fool!”

Sano eased out of the room, drawing the shogun with him. He saw that his mother was offended by the shogun’s treatment of him, and he didn’t want her to say something that would change the shogun’s mind about pardoning her. He ushered the shogun to the reception room.

“I beg you to let me prove my innocence,” Sano said. “With your permission, I’ll go and work on that now.”

“Permission denied!” The shogun clutched Sano’s sleeve. “I came to talk to you because I am, ahh, faced with a terrible crisis. You’re not going anywhere until you help me!”

“I’ll be glad to help,” Sano said. “What is this crisis?”

The shogun paced the room, frantic with worry. “Ever since I found out that Lord Matsudaira wants to take my place, people have been urging me to declare war on his whole branch of our clan. They think I should lead a battle not only to crush him for good, but to subjugate his sons, his other kin, and his thousands of retainers. They talk and argue and pressure me.” He clasped his hands over his ears. “They won’t stop!”

Sano wasn’t surprised. The samurai class had grown restless since the war between Lord Matsudaira and the former chamberlain Yanagisawa, a minor skirmish during a peace that had lasted almost a century. Civil war was the logical outcome of escalating political strife, and a ruler under threat must launch a defense. Although Sano dreaded what a war would do to Japan, battle-lust enflamed his samurai blood. He welcomed the chance for a showdown with his enemy. And he knew his duty.

“If you want to go to war with Lord Matsudaira’s people, you can count on my support,” Sano said.

“But I don’t want to! I don’t like fighting. All I want is to live in peace!” The shogun faced Sano with shoulders hunched and clasped hands extended. “What shall I do?”

“You could put Lord Matsudaira to death,” Sano said. “He’s a traitor; he’s already under arrest. Executing him is a logical next step. It would spare you the trouble of a war.” And spare Sano and his family more attacks from Lord Matsudaira.

“I can’t do that!” The shogun was horrified at the idea of taking responsibility for such drastic action.

“Then tell everyone that you forbid a war,” Sano said, honor-bound to serve his lord’s wishes and put aside his own agenda. “You’re their master. They have to obey.”

Although the shogun looked tempted, he said, “But if I do that, they’ll know what a coward I am. They’ll think I don’t deserve to be shogun.”

They would, and they would be right, but Sano said, “It doesn’t matter what they think. The emperor grants the title of shogun. By divine law, nobody else can take it away from you.”

“The emperor is in his palace in Miyako. He doesn’t care who is shogun. Nor does he want to, ahh, get involved in any trouble. Rather than stand up for me, he would just as soon grant the title to an ox!”

Having met the emperor nine years ago, Sano had to admit that this assessment of him was correct. Japan’s emperors hadn’t had any political or military power in centuries, and this one wouldn’t likely change the status quo.

“If I refuse to fight Lord Matsudaira, everyone will switch their allegiance to him,” the shogun wailed. “They’ll band together and destroy me!”

They must have used that threat to coerce the shogun. Sano said reluctantly, “Then your only alternative is to make peace with Lord Matsudaira. Invite him to talk. Negotiate a truce.”

“I can’t.” The shogun wrung his hands. “It’s too late. Lord Matsudaira has already made the first strike.”

“What?” Surprised and alarmed, Sano said, “When?”

“Not two hours ago. His troops ambushed and killed ten of mine on the Ryogoku Bridge.”

Sano supposed that Lord Matsudaira might have ordered the ambush… but he saw a familiar pattern, smelled a familiar scent. He was sure about who had attacked the shogun and implicated Lord Matsudaira in order to force the shogun’s hand.

“If I don’t retaliate, I’m not just a coward, I’m a fool.” The shogun moaned. “Chamberlain Sano, I can’t bear all this trouble. Make it go away!”

Sano had a sudden memory of the last time he’d heard those words, three or four years ago. Masahiro had had a nightmare and awakened screaming. When Sano and Reiko had hurried to his bedside, he’d told them there was a ghost in the house. Make it go away! he’d begged.

The shogun was looking at Sano with the same fright Sano had seen in Masahiro’s eyes.

That night Sano had roved the house, slashing his sword at the ghost while Masahiro had trailed him anxiously. When Sano had exorcised every room, he’d said, It’s gone.

But he couldn’t banish the shogun’s troubles by playing games… Or could he?

Sano experienced one of those rare moments of clarity, when he saw his path charted like torches lighting his way through a dark labyrinth. The clarity sprang from all his experience, wisdom, cunning, and more. The steps he must take came to him as fully realized as in a divine vision.

“All right,” Sano said, “I’ll fix everything.”

“How?” The shogun regarded Sano with eagerness to believe and fear of disappointment.

Sano couldn’t yet articulate his plans in words; they were akin to a message communicated to him by a mute stone Buddha. “For your sake it’s best that you don’t know in advance.”

“Very well,” the shogun said uncertainly. “What happens first?”

“You’ll see soon enough.” Sano knew in his deepest spirit that at the end of his path was the solution not only to the shogun’s problems but to his own.

“What should I do?”

“One simple thing,” Sano said. “Whatever I do, just play along and trust me.”

Sano and Hirata strode into the wing of the palace where the shogun’s male concubines lived. They found the youths rehearsing a play. A dais in a reception room served as a stage. Sano and Hirata stood behind the audience of boys. These ranged from children to adolescents, who lounged on the floor, joking and making so much noise that they didn’t notice Sano’s and Hirata’s presence. Two actors occupied the stage.

One was costumed in a long black wig, a white silk kimono, and a mask with the face of a beautiful girl. The other wore a mask of a handsome young man and a priest’s saffron robe. The girl pursued the priest back and forth across the stage in slow, ritual motion. They circled a wooden model of a temple bell while a chorus of eight boys sang and chanted their lines, and musicians at the rear of the stage played a flute and drums. Sano recognized the drama as Dojoji, a play about a demon woman who falls in love with a priest. He has taken a vow of celibacy and tries to escape her seduction.

As her pursuit grew more desperate, the priest pantomimed fright. The chorus sang louder and faster; the drums’ rhythm accelerated. Sano spotted Yoritomo among the musicians, playing the flute. The priest hid under the temple bell. The woman flung off her robe, revealing another patterned with green, reptilian scales. Her mask, which had moving parts, changed into the snarling face of a serpent. She hissed and coiled around the bell. Sano was wondering how she would manage the part where flames came out of her fangs and killed her and the priest, when the stage exploded with a loud bang.

Red light flared behind the bell. The music stopped. Pungent smoke engulfed the bell, the serpent, chorus, and musicians. The audience cheered.

“Gunpowder,” Sano said to Hirata.

They clapped. The audience turned, saw them, and quieted. As the smoke cleared, the priest crawled out from under the bell. Everyone regarded Sano and Hirata with surprise.

“Chamberlain Sano,” Yoritomo said. His smile faded as he noticed Sano’s somber expression. “What is it?”

“Come with us,” Sano said.

Yoritomo rose uncertainly and stepped off the stage. “May I ask why?”

Sano hated what he had to do to Yoritomo. He was truly fond of the youth, but this was the necessary first step in his plan. “You’re under arrest.”

“Arrest?” Shock froze Yoritomo’s face. He looked at the troops who entered the room. “For what?”

“For treason,” Sano said.

Excited whispers swept through the assembly. Yoritomo beheld Sano with disbelief, fear, and guilt. As Sano, Hirata, and the troops advanced up the room toward him, he stammered, “But I haven’t-You can’t-”

The troops escorted him out the door. The other young men watched, some with pity, others with glee, all with astonishment. Yoritomo called frantically to Sano, “Where are you taking me?”

“To your trial,” Sano said.

During the next few hours, Sano’s troops distributed announcements of Yoritomo’s trial. By nightfall, the notices had circulated throughout Edo Castle, the daimyo estates, the districts where the Tokugawa vassals lived, and all around town. They covered every public information board and passed from hand to hand among the townspeople. News sellers wandering the streets took up the cry: “The shogun’s boy lover will be tried for treason in the palace at the hour of the dog!”

Inside her chamber, Reiko knelt on the futon. “Come sleep with Mama tonight,” she called to Akiko. She patted the quilt and smiled.

Akiko stood at the threshold with Midori. “No,” she said obstinately, clutching Midori’s skirts.

Reiko felt her smile strain the muscles of her face. “Why not? Masahiro is going to sleep here, too.” He sat in the bed, the quilt drawn over his knees. “It will be fun.”

“Don’t want to,” Akiko said.

All day Reiko had watched over her children, never letting them out of her sight. All day she’d waited for Lord Matsudaira’s assassins to attack. Nothing had happened yet; perhaps her vigilance had thwarted them. Reiko was exhausted from following the children around, her nerves on edge. And she was hurt because all day her daughter had made it clear that her presence was unwelcome.

“Well, I don’t care what you want,” Reiko snapped. “You’re sleeping here, and I’m not going to argue.”

She had to protect her daughter, no matter how her daughter felt about her. Reiko rose, marched up to Akiko, and grabbed her hand. “Midori-san, you’d better go,” Reiko said as she pulled the little girl toward the bed. “She has to get used to me sooner or later. It might as well be now.”

Akiko screamed and dragged her feet. Midori pressed her hands together below her lips, her eyes filled with concern. She knew about the assassins; Reiko had told her. “Maybe Akiko would be just as safe in the next room. If anybody comes near her, you’ll hear, and I can stay with her if you want.”

“So can I,” Masahiro said. He removed his sword from under the bed. Reiko had also told him about the assassination plot. “I’ll protect her.”

“No! You stay where you are!” Reiko ordered.

“I can guard her just as well if she’s in the next room,” Lieutenant Asukai said from the corridor.

“You stay out of this!” Reiko hardly knew which made her angrier-that Lord Matsudaira meant to kill her children, or that nobody would do what she said. She wrestled Akiko into the bed. Akiko flailed, shrieked, and kicked Reiko.

“Ouch!” Reiko shouted. “Hold still and be quiet, or I’m going to spank you!”

Akiko obeyed, but Reiko saw in Akiko’s eyes a fury that matched her own. That her child could feel such enmity toward her took her breath away. Then Akiko began to cry.

Reiko was so ashamed of threatening her child that tears filled her own eyes. But now that she had Akiko where she wanted, she wouldn’t give in. She lay down on the side of the bed and pulled the quilt over Akiko and herself. She set her jaw and endured Akiko’s sobs.

“The bed is big enough for one more. Can I stay?” Midori asked. “Maybe that will help her settle down.”

“All right.” Reiko didn’t know when Sano would be back, she could use help guarding the children, and Midori was the only person besides Lieutenant Asukai that Reiko could trust.

Midori blew out the flame in the lantern, then got in bed between Reiko and Akiko, a buffer separating them. They and Masahiro lay awake in the darkness.

Yoritomo’s trial took place in a makeshift courtroom in the palace. The doors between several chambers had been opened to create a space large enough for the horde of spectators. Men knelt on the floor, smoking pipes, facing the dais. There Sano sat, dressed in black ceremonial robes stamped with his flying-crane crest in gold. Surveying the crowd, he spotted prominent officials and daimyo. The announcements had done their work. Nobody who mattered was absent.

Below him, white sand had been spread on the floor to form a shirasu, symbol of truth. On a straw mat on the sand knelt Yoritomo, his wrists and ankles bound, his face dripping sweat. His head turned from side to side; his eyes pleaded for help.

None came from Sano’s troops stationed along the walls. None came from the audience, which included Yoritomo’s father’s enemies; they were eager to see the youth they considered an unhealthy influence on the shogun take a fall. If any man had objections to the trial, he didn’t voice them, for none came from the shogun. He knelt beside Hirata, on the far right side of the dais, lending his tacit approval to the proceedings. He looked frightened and bewildered yet resigned, like a child who’d been forced to swallow bad-tasting medicine.

“The first witness will come forward,” Sano said.

A man entered the room through a door near the dais. He knelt and bowed to Sano and the shogun. The audience leaned forward to see; men in the back craned their necks. He was a strapping young man in worn, faded clothes, a kerchief tied around his shaved head.

“State your name and position,” Sano ordered.

“Itami Senjuro,” the man said. “I’m a ronin.”

He wasn’t a ronin, and that wasn’t his real name. He was a gardener at Sano’s estate.

“Do you know the defendant?” Sano asked.

“Yes, Honorable Chamberlain,” Itami said.

Yoritomo regarded Itami, and Sano, with incredulous dismay.

“How do you know him?” Sano asked.

“He hired me and some other ronin to attack your soldiers.”

The audience stirred, excited by the news. Yoritomo cried, “I didn’t! That’s a lie!”

“Be quiet,” Sano ordered sternly. “You’ll have your turn to talk later.” He said to Itami, “When was this attack?”

“Last autumn.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Itami repeated the story Sano had instructed him to tell: “Yoritomo gave us guns. We hid in the woods along the highway. When your soldiers rode by, we shot them.”

Yoritomo was shaking his head, horrified because he realized the trial was rigged. Sano asked, “What else did Yoritomo give you besides guns?”

“He gave us clothes decorated with Lord Matsudaira’s crest,” Itami replied. “We wore them to the ambush.”

Whispers broke out among the audience. Sano saw heads leaning together, speculative glances exchanged. The atmosphere was thick with tobacco smoke, warm from body heat. “Why did he want you to wear Lord Matsudaira’s crest?” Sano asked.

“So that people who saw us would think Lord Matsudaira sent us,” Itami said.

“That will be all,” Sano said. “You’re dismissed.”

Itami bowed and left the room. Sano said, “I call the next witness.”

Through the door came another, older man, his nose misshapen and cheeks scarred from many fights. The tattoos on his thick, muscular arms provoked rumbling and hostile stares from the audience.

After the witness knelt and bowed, Sano said, “State your name and occupation.”

“Uhei,” the witness said in a coarse, sullen voice. “I’m a gangster.”

That actually was his name, and he actually was a gangster, whom Hirata had met and often arrested during his career as a police officer. Hirata had thought Uhei would add authenticity to the trial and threatened him with jail if he didn’t cooperate. Questioning by Sano revealed that Uhei, like the ronin, had been hired last autumn by Yoritomo.

“To do what?” Sano asked.

“To bomb Lord Matsudaira’s villa by the river,” Uhei replied.

His words set off low exclamations among the assembly. The shogun was as stiff and mute as a wooden puppet. Yoritomo gazed at Sano with eyes full of pain, devastated by Sano’s betrayal.

“What happened?” Sano steeled his heart against his onetime friend. Yoritomo was guilty by association if not deed. He knew it as well as Sano did. And the attacks on Sano and Lord Matsudaira weren’t his only crimes.

“I went to the villa with another man Yoritomo hired,” the gangster said. “He lit the bomb and threw it. I was the lookout. He was caught by Lord Matsudaira’s guards. I got away.” He sounded pleased by his fictional exploit.

“Whose crest did you wear on your clothes?” Sano asked.

“Yours.”

Confusion rippled through the audience. That Yoritomo, the shogun’s plaything, had apparently mounted attacks on two such powerful men was a shock to everyone. Sano was certain they would be more shocked if they knew what Yoritomo was really up to. Yanagisawa was undoubtedly calling the shots from behind the scenes, but he needed help from someone who could come and go freely, who had access to information. Yoritomo was his henchman and spy at court.

“Yoritomo wanted Lord Matsudaira to think I ordered the bombing?” Sano said.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” the gangster said. “He didn’t tell me.”

“Perhaps the next witness can shed some light on the matter,” Sano said.

The next witness was a young woman who minced into the courtroom on high-soled sandals. She caused exclamations and mutters from the audience. Her long hair draped her pink and orange floral kimono. Her pretty face was plastered with thick white rice powder and bright red rouge. She dimpled at the men, and Sano felt the heat in the room rise.

When he asked her to identify herself, she said, “My name is Kiku. I’m a maid at the Plum Blossom Teahouse.”

She was really a maid at Sano’s estate. His large household could supply actors to fill any sort of roles. Sano asked, “What is your relationship with Yoritomo?”

Kiku preened and giggled. “We’re lovers.”

The shogun gasped, hurt because his favorite had apparently cheated on him with this female. Every gaze in the room flew to him as he leaned forward to protest. Hirata whispered in his ear. He settled back on his heels, miserable and docile as a whipped dog.

“No!” Aghast, Yoritomo said, “I’ve never even met her! She’s lying!”

“One more outburst from you, and you’ll be beaten,” Sano said, then asked the girl, “How long have you and the defendant been lovers?”

“Oh, three years now,” Kiku said, giggling. “He came into the teahouse, and when we saw each other, it was love at first sight-”

“Did Yoritomo tell you why he staged the attacks on Lord Matsudaira and myself?” Sano cut her off because she was embellishing the story he’d ordered her to tell.

“Oh, yes.” Kiku clearly enjoyed the audience’s attention; she smoothed her kimono that Sano had borrowed from Reiko’s chest of old clothes. “We told each other everything that was on our minds. We had no secrets-”

“Why did he do it?”

Kiku sighed, reluctant to deliver her last lines and end her performance. “He wanted you and Lord Matsudaira to blame the attacks on each other,” she recited. “He wanted to start a war between you. After you destroyed each other, he could step in and take power over the regime.”

The murmuring in the audience rose to a roar. Sano could tell from its tone that many of the daimyo and officials had believed Yoritomo wanted the power his father had craved, and now they thought their suspicions were confirmed. The shogun dropped his head into his hands, rocking back and forth. Yoritomo sat motionless and stunned. To Sano he resembled a stone statue that had been struck a mortal blow, cracks spreading through it, ready to crumble.

“That’s enough,” Sano said to the girl.

She bowed, rose, and flounced out of the room, all smiles. Sano said, “The evidence proves that Yoritomo is guilty of subversive actions that amount to treason. But the law gives him the opportunity to speak in his own defense.” He turned to Yoritomo. “Speak now if you will.”

Yoritomo addressed the man whose opinion was the one that really mattered. “Your Excellency, I’ve never seen any of those people before in my life. I didn’t do what they said I did. They’re all liars. I’m being framed. I swear I’m innocent!”

His voice rose on a high, unnatural note and broke. He was a terrible liar. Sano felt the sentiment in the audience weighing further against Yoritomo. But the shogun leaned toward his lover, his eyes filled with pain, pity, and yearning.

Hirata slipped his hand under the shogun’s sleeve and closed his fingers around the shogun’s wrist. No one noticed except Sano. The shogun stiffened, coerced into playing along with this game Sano had staged.

“I swear that girl isn’t my lover,” Yoritomo declared. “I’ve never spoken to her, never touched her. I’ve never looked at anyone else since I met you, Your Excellency. I’ve never been unfaithful or disloyal. After everything you’ve given me, I would never plot behind your back to seize power from you!” His voice wavered with a blend of truth and falsehood. “Please have mercy!”

As the assembly watched in suspense, the shogun looked miserable. He chewed his lip, then said, “Chamberlain Sano-”

Hirata squeezed the shogun’s wrist. The shogun jerked and grimaced. The resistance leaked out of him, drained by the pressure Hirata had applied to a nerve junction. “Proceed,” he said dully.

“Your word isn’t enough to prove your innocence,” Sano told Yoritomo. “Can you offer any evidence or witnesses?”

“How could I?” Yoritomo demanded, angry as well as terrified. “You’ve given me no time to gather any!”

That had been one point of rushing him to trial: Sano wanted no challenge to the verdict. The other point was that Sano wanted to set events in motion as quickly as possible.

“Then I must pronounce you guilty of treason,” Sano said.

Yoritomo lifted his face skyward, his eyes and mouth wide open, as if asking the gods to explain how this fate could befall him and praying for rescue. The audience’s faces and murmurs expressed satisfaction. The shogun buried his face in his hands and wept.

“I sentence you to death by decapitation,” Sano said.

The audience buzzed with surprise. Samurai weren’t usually executed for crimes, not even for treason, the worst. They had the right to commit ritual suicide and redeem their honor. But that wouldn’t serve Sano’s purposes.

Yoritomo didn’t object or weep. His eyes flashed Sano one last hurt look, then went opaque as he withdrew into himself. He sat upright, head high, shoulders squared, courageously accepting his fate. Sano had to admire him. The young man had dignity despite his life as a political pawn. Sano tasted guilt, sour as bile, for tormenting this young man who was as much a victim as a genuine traitor.

“You shall be executed at Kotsukappara tomorrow at noon,” Sano announced.

That should give his publicity campaign enough time to work.

Reiko lay on her back, eyes half open, floating on the surface of sleep. Her body relaxed, but her mind was alert to the world around her. As a mother she excelled at napping while awake. When Masahiro had been a baby and gotten sick, she’d rested beside him at night, ready to spring to action at his faintest cry. Now she applied her talent to the purpose of guarding her children’s lives.

She could hear their breathing as they slept in the bed with her. She heard the wind rustling the trees outside, the voices and footsteps of the patrol guards, and a dog howling in the distance. The house was quiet. All was well… for now.

In the distance, beyond the range of Reiko’s hearing, the floor in the passage creaked softly under stealthy footsteps.

Night thinned the crowds in the Ginza district. The theaters closed their doors; the actors, musicians, and patrons headed home. The wind swept paper flowers from costumes, crumpled handbills, and sunflower-seed shells along the streets. People in search of more entertainment repaired to the teahouses.

In the room behind the teahouse with the red lanterns hanging from its eaves, Yanagisawa hunched over the charcoal brazier. The wind whistled through cracks in the walls, and the room was freezing. He listened to the customers making bets, arguing, cursing, and slapping down cards, the rattle of dice, the wine splashing into cups, the discordant samisen music. He fretted with impatience.

Yesterday Lord Arima had followed his orders and told the shogun that Lord Matsudaira was trying to seize power. The results had delighted Yanagisawa. He’d gloated over Yoritomo’s descriptions of Lord Matsudaira stunned, frantic, and put under house arrest. He’d savored his own cleverness.

But that was the last news he’d heard. Today his troops should have attacked the shogun’s army while wearing the Matsudaira crest. The shogun’s allies should have interpreted the attack as a strike by Lord Matsudaira and pressured the shogun to declare war. Had it happened yet? Yanagisawa fumed. Why hadn’t Yoritomo come with good tidings?

The maid sauntered into the room. She carried a tray, which she plunked down beside Yanagisawa. The tray held his dinner of soup, rice balls, pickles, and grilled fish. By the food lay a folded paper.

“The boss thought you should see this.” The maid pointed at the paper, then left.

Yanagisawa read the paper, an announcement torn off a public notice board. The shogun’s companion, Yanagisawa Yoritomo, has been arrested for treason. His trial will take place tonight at the hour of the dog. If he is pronounced guilty, he will be put to death at the Kotsukappara execution ground at noon tomorrow.

“No!” Disbelief and shock punched the breath out of Yanagisawa. Here was the reason Yoritomo hadn’t come. Yanagisawa reread the notice, seeking an explanation of why his son was suspected of treason and who had arrested Yoritomo. But the space between the lines remained maddeningly blank.

Yanagisawa’s heart drummed in his ears, pumping currents of panic through his body. Had someone found out that he’d returned from exile? If so, who? Had whoever it was also discovered that Yoritomo was conspiring to put his father back in power?

Whatever the answers the trial would have been finished hours ago. It would surely have ended in a guilty verdict, as most trials did. The thought of his son imprisoned, alone, and terrified, helplessly awaiting death, made Yanagisawa shout in rage. He crumpled the notice, flung it across the room, and jumped to his feet. He must take action.

A premonition of danger startled Reiko. She bolted upright, fully awake, her heart racing. A strangled cry sounded in the darkness. The door slid open, and she saw the figure of a man enter the room. The faint light that shone through the paper-paned lattice wall glittered on the blade in his hand. Reiko instinctively snatched up her own sword. As the man loomed over her, she thrust the weapon at him with all her might.

A grunt like that of a wounded animal erupted from him. He thudded across her legs. Masahiro woke up and cried, “Mama!”

The man writhed on the bed, atop Reiko and Midori and Akiko. She smelled his leather armor, sour breath, and sweat. Midori said, “What?” in a sleepy voice. Akiko began to keen. Reiko saw the man thrashing. Her sword protruded from his belly.

“Mama, you got him!” Masahiro shouted.

But the man raised himself. His hand still held his dagger. He lunged at Masahiro, weapon raised. Masahiro yelled. Reiko sprang up and grabbed the assassin’s wrist. They fell onto Akiko and Midori.

“What’s going on?” Midori said as Reiko fought with the assassin. Akiko began to cry. “Who is that?”

The man was too big and muscular for Reiko to overcome. He threw her off him as if she weighed nothing. When she leaped at him again, he backhanded her jaw.

Reiko’s head rang. As she fell backward, she heard Akiko crying and Midori calling, “Help! Help!” The floor shook. Reiko pushed herself up on her elbows. Human shapes moved across her blurred vision. She blinked and saw the assassin chasing Masahiro. The boy sped past Reiko. The assassin followed, staggering. Reiko focused on her sword that still stuck out of the assassin’s belly. She grabbed its hilt with both hands and pulled.

The man roared in agony as the blade ripped free of his flesh. He dropped to his knees. Reiko lashed the sword at him. The blade cut into his throat. He made an awful, gurgling noise. A hot, wet spew of blood drenched Reiko. The assassin collapsed with a crash.

“Mama! Good work!” Masahiro exclaimed.

He was unhurt, jumping up and down in triumph. Reiko tasted the blood that ran down her face. She gagged and retched. Midori lit a lantern. The whole, horrific tableau sprang into bright view.

The assassin lay dead on the floor, Reiko’s sword cleaved halfway through his neck, in a spreading puddle of blood. He wore the plain kimono, trousers, and armor tunic of Sano’s foot soldiers. His dagger had fallen beside his hand. His eyes were open and his mouth flaccid. Midori and Akiko huddled together in bed, staring at him in shock. They turned to Reiko, their eyes filled with horror.

“Put out the light!” Reiko cried.

It was too late. Her daughter had already seen her covered with blood, a monster from a child’s worst nightmare. Akiko screamed and screamed and screamed.

Her screams brought troops rushing into the bedchamber. Sano followed on his men’s heels. Dressed in formal clothes, he’d apparently just arrived home. Reiko saw him take one look at her and the corpse and realize what had happened.

“Take the children away,” he ordered Midori.

Midori’s complexion was white, and she appeared ready to be sick, but she scooped the hysterical Akiko into her arms and hustled Masahiro out the door. As Sano studied the corpse, anger and hurt suffused his features. “That’s Nabeshima. He’s served me for ten years.” He told his troops, “Get him out of here.”

The men wrapped the corpse in the bloodstained quilt from the bed and carried it off. Sano said to Reiko, “Are you all right?”

Reiko gulped and nodded even though her jaw was swelling painfully, her stomach nauseated. The children were safe; nothing else mattered. She wiped her face on her sleeve and ran her hands through her hair, which was wet and clotted with blood. She reeked of its salty, metallic stench.

“Thank the gods,” Sano said in relief. “Let’s go to the bath-chamber so you can wash.”

A frightening thought occurred to Reiko. She remembered the cry she’d heard right before the attack. “How did that man get into the room? Where’s Lieutenant Asukai?”

Sano’s somber expression was reply enough.

A cry burst from Reiko. “No!”

Sano nodded unhappily. “We found him in the corridor. He’d been stabbed. Either he didn’t hear Nabeshima coming or didn’t realize Nabeshima meant any harm until it was too late.”

As sobs shuddered through her, Reiko said, “I want to see him. I want to say good-bye.”

She rose and would have hurried from the room, but Sano gently held her back. “Later. He’s already been taken away.”

“How could it happen?” Reiko wept in Sano’s embrace.

Sano told her that he’d also found two patrol guards dead outside the private quarters. “The other assassins must have done it. They and Nabeshima worked as a team. They cleared his way to you and the children.”

Reiko couldn’t spare any grief for the other casualties. Her loyal bodyguard had died in her service, and she couldn’t even thank him. Now her knees buckled under the heavy, terrible weight of grief and gratitude.

“He put himself between me and danger. His presence delayed the assassin long enough for me to realize we were under attack. If not for him, we would be dead now.” Asukai had kept his promise. “He protected us, at the cost of his own life!”

“It’s over,” Sano said, trying to comfort her. “You killed Nabeshima. He can’t hurt anybody now.”

“Yes,” Reiko said, “but it was too close a call. And I only killed one assassin. There are eight more inside the house and who knows how many outside! What’s going to happen when the next one strikes? How will we protect the children?”

In the morning, a large procession left Sano’s estate. Troops bristling with spears surrounded Sano, Hirata, Reiko, and the children. Akiko and Masahiro walked between Sano and Hirata. Sano and Masahiro held Akiko’s hands. Midori and Reiko followed. Detective Marume led and Detective Fukida brought up the rear of their little band. Reiko couldn’t see a thing ahead of or above her because the troops raised their shields to protect her family from arrows and gunshots. But she was more afraid of treachery from within the escort that Sano had organized than from dangers outside. Among his troops might be the eight assassins.

She and Sano had decided that the children would be safer away from home. They’d agreed to place the children in Hirata’s house, under Hirata’s guard. “The children will be fine along the way if they’re protected by so many troops that any assassins within the ranks are outnumbered by men loyal to me,” Sano had said.

His mother hadn’t wanted to go. She’d insisted that she would be safe enough at his house and his family would be safer away from her. Sano hadn’t argued.

As the procession wound slowly through the passages, like a caterpillar with a thousand legs, Reiko had second thoughts. The press and movement of the soldiers’ bodies too near her generated heat. Their breath soured and moistened the air. Her skin prickled. One or more of those men could attack before the others could stop them. Reiko felt as if she and her children were in the belly of a monster.

She wished she could walk between Masahiro and Akiko, hold them close, shield them with her own body. But Masahiro didn’t want her fussing over him, and Akiko screamed every time she looked at Reiko. Even though Reiko had bathed and put on clean clothes, her daughter wouldn’t forget the sight of her drenched in the blood of the man she’d killed.

At last they reached Hirata’s mansion. The troops arranged themselves in a blockade that extended far down the passage on either side of the portals. Hirata and Sano hurried Reiko, the children, and Midori inside. When the gate closed behind them, Reiko sighed with fleeting relief. They were surrounded by Hirata’s troops; Hirata had vouched for them, and he claimed that if any harbored evil designs, he would sense it. Reiko only hoped his instincts were right.

Sano hesitated before leaving his family. “You should be safer here than anywhere else,” he told Reiko.

“I’ll protect Mama and Akiko,” Masahiro declared.

He was child enough to view this as a game, Reiko observed. He thought that when she’d killed the assassin she had won the first round. Akiko hid her face in Midori’s skirts. Reiko wished Sano could stay with them, but she knew he must go.

“Will you let me know what happens?” Reiko asked.

“As soon as I can,” Sano promised.

Earlier, he’d told her his plan and what had led up to it. Reiko thought it very clever, but she had doubts about whether it would solve all their problems. “May you have good luck,” she said.

Sano smiled. “May I not need to depend too much on luck.”

Then he was gone.

Hirata and Midori ushered Reiko and the children into the house. Hirata’s children happily greeted their playmates. They towed Masahiro and Akiko by the hands into a warm, bright room filled with toys. The adults followed.

“We’ll stay together in here,” Hirata said. “My guards will be outside.”

Reiko felt trapped rather than protected. She knelt in a corner while the children played, while she dwelled on last night’s attack. Her mind picked out instants where things could have turned out differently, for the worse.

What if she hadn’t managed to stab the assassin? What if she’d been unable to pull her sword out of him and cut his throat? All Reiko’s alternative, imagined scenarios ended with her children murdered.

Servants brought food for the hosts and guests. When Reiko joined the others to eat, Akiko screamed. She wouldn’t stop no matter how hard Midori and Masahiro tried to soothe her. Blinking, Reiko said, “I’d better leave.”

“No, don’t,” Hirata said, and Reiko saw pity in his eyes. “I have an idea.” He positioned a lattice screen. “Maybe if you sit behind this-just for a while, until she gets over what happened…?”

Reiko took her place behind the screen and ate her meal. The screen hid her from Akiko, who quieted at once, but Reiko could see and hear everyone through the lattice. She watched Akiko eat and Midori wipe her face; she listened to Masahiro and Hirata talk about archery. She noticed the tension between Hirata and Midori. Her children and friends seemed so far away. She felt like a lonely wild beast in a cage.

And all she could do was wait for the news that Sano’s plan had succeeded-or failed.

A long procession straggled up the Oshu Kaido, the highway that led north out of Edo. At its front Sano rode with Detectives Marume and Fukida, leading the shogun in a palanquin and his personal bodyguards on horseback. Behind them, a cart drawn by an ox and driven by a peasant man carried Yoritomo. The movement jolted his kneeling figure, which was tied to a post mounted on the cart. His wrists and ankles were bound, his face covered by a black hood with a breathing hole cut over his nostrils. Next followed a horde of Sano’s foot soldiers and mounted troops. At the rear, daimyo and Tokugawa officials in palanquins and on horseback, accompanied by attendants, formed a tail that snaked back to town.

As noon approached, the sun ascended above the cedar trees that lined the road. Its rays glinted through drifting clouds, through the funereal leaf canopy, off metal helmets. No one spoke. The only sounds were the wind, the horses’ hoofbeats, the marchers’ footfalls, the cart’s wheels rattling.

The head of the procession reached Kotsukappara Keijo, one of Edo’s two execution grounds. It was a huge open field, the ground trampled flat, bordered by tangled shrubbery and skeletal pine trees. Hundreds of townsfolk were gathered around the perimeter.

“Your notices have brought out a crowd,” Fukida remarked.

Riding across the field, Sano scanned the spectators. Men, women, and children sat on mats, eating and drinking refreshments they’d brought in baskets. They reminded Sano of the audiences in theaters. They had the same cheerful, anticipatory air as people waiting for a play to begin. When they saw the procession, they buzzed with the same excitement as when actors take the stage. Around the field stood advertisements for what they’d come to see today.

Four gibbets held the heads of recently executed criminals, impaled on nails and propped up with clay so they wouldn’t fall off. Flies swarmed on the heads and in the drippings under them. Ravens pecked at their eyes. On a cross built of rough boards hung a man’s naked corpse. Red gashes on his torso had spilled blood down his legs; he’d been stabbed to death while crucified. The crowd didn’t seem to mind the grisly relics, or the stench of dead, decaying flesh.

“I don’t see the guest of honor,” Sano said.

“There’s still time,” Marume said.

Sano directed the oxcart driver to the center of the field. Troops untied Yoritomo and dumped him on the ground; he lay inert. The oxcart rolled off to the sidelines. The procession gathered in a wide circle around Yoritomo. Mounted samurai remained on their horses. Sano and the detectives grouped by the shogun’s palanquin. The shogun climbed out, and his bodyguards seated him on its roof, for a good view of his lover’s execution. The audience stood; necks craned. The executioner and his assistants approached Yoritomo. Their clothes were stained with old blood. Fukida conferred with the executioner, who nodded, then led his assistants to a shed at the edge of the field. They returned carrying shovels and saws.

Exclamations burst from the townsfolk. Daimyo, officials, and soldiers muttered among themselves as the assistants began digging a hole. No one had expected to witness the most extreme form of capital punishment-nokogiri-biki, in which the criminal is immobilized in a pit and his head sawn off while he is alive.

“This is a good touch,” Marume complimented Sano.

“I wanted the maximum drama,” Sano said.

The assistants finished digging the pit and lowered Yoritomo into it. He neither resisted nor cooperated. He was limp, a dead weight. The assembly watched in silence. Yoritomo knelt at the pit’s bottom, supported by its sides, his head protruding above the surface. The assistants shoveled dirt into the pit until he was buried up to his neck. The executioner hefted his saw.

Sano looked at the sky. The sun was poised at the top of its trajectory. Bells from distant temples tolled the noon hour. Sano raised his hand, signaling the executioner to wait, despite groans from the townsfolk and impatient glances from his fellow samurai. He looked past the trees, where vultures waited for a fresh kill. Straining his ears, he listened.

Imprisoned within his estate, Lord Matsudaira paced the floor of his chamber. He’d been drinking since the shogun had put him under house arrest, and the room was fumey with liquor and stale perspiration. The shutters were closed to protect his sore, bleary eyes from the daylight. Three bodyguards stood by the door. They watched him nervously, as if he were a bear who’d just awakened from hibernation, clumsy but ravenous.

He lifted a jar from a table. His hand shook as he poured sake, rattling the jar against the cup. He wore nothing but a dressing robe. His hair hung in shaggy locks around his shaved crown. His face was puffy, his speech slurred. “This can’t be happening to me. What am I going to do?”

At first he’d raged against the injustice that had been done to him. He’d called the shogun a mean, stupid fool. He’d cursed Sano for landing him in this predicament and set assassins on Sano and his family. He’d vowed to triumph in the end. But as the hours had passed and ranting accomplished nothing, Lord Matsudaira’s anger had given way to helplessness.

Lord Matsudaira gulped his sake and said, “That I could fall into such a wretched state, a prisoner in my own home, with the threat of death hanging over me!” His voice quavered and broke. “When all my life I believed I was destined for greatness!”

His men eyed him with awe and dismay: He wasn’t the man they knew, but his shrunken, enfeebled shadow. They clearly hated to witness his deterioration.

“All my life I tried to live up to my destiny,” Lord Matsudaira said. “I excelled at everything I did.” A weak pride inflated his spirit. He heard in his own voice an echo of his despised cousin the shogun. “Even when I was young, other men lined up behind me and followed me wherever I led them. I ruled my province with wisdom and benevolence. Everyone admired me as well as obeyed me. I knew myself to be a good samurai, a decent man. But somewhere I went wrong.

“I began to think I should rule Japan. And why not? I had far more wits and courage than my cousin.” He tasted his scorn, bitter and vile. “My cousin would wipe his rear end on Japan and throw it away! I only wanted to save it from his foolishness!”

He’d never confided these treasonous thoughts to anyone, but the drink and his need to justify himself had loosened his tongue. “But I was forced to bow down to my cousin while he rubbed my face in the fact that he was shogun and I could never be. The time came when I could no longer bear it. I recruited allies who were also eager to be out from under his weak thumb. I began my campaign to seize power.”

Lord Matsudaira swelled with the memory of those glorious days. “I eliminated my first obstacle. I sent that scoundrel Yanagisawa into exile.” Then his shoulders sagged. “How was I to know that his partisans would keep fighting me?” His voice rose in a whine. “How could I have known that Sano Ichiro would challenge me for control over Japan? Now everything I’ve worked so hard for has crumbled into dust. My allies have deserted me in favor of my cousin.” He shook with impotent anger, swayed with drunkenness. “What will become of me?”

The bodyguards exchanged glances, each loath to answer. One said cautiously, “Bear up, master. The trouble will pass. Things will be all right.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Even as a sob wracked Lord Matsudaira, he tried to recover his confidence. “I’ll get through this, I swear.”

He heard footsteps in the corridor and looked up as his chief retainer entered the room, looking dire.

“What is it?” Lord Matsudaira demanded.

“I’m sorry to say that your assassins attempted to kill Chamberlain Sano’s wife and children last night and failed. One of the assassins is dead.”

“Well, the others will just have to keep trying,” Lord Matsudaira said impatiently.

“I’m afraid that’s not all that’s happened,” the chief retainer said. “Chamberlain Sano has taken Yoritomo to the execution ground.”

“Then he really intends to go through with his farce of putting the boy to death for treason. Good riddance. So what?” Lord Matsudaira retorted.

“Maybe he doesn’t. Have you thought of what else Sano might be up to?”

Lord Matsudaira hadn’t, but now he did. Suddenly, in one of those moments of pure, astounding clarity that sometimes strike drunken men, he understood what was going on, what Sano meant to accomplish. The breath gushed out of him as he also understood the ramifications for himself. The hardest blow had fallen at the wrong time. He sank to his knees and groaned.

“I could take down one or the other,” he said, “but not both at once.” His bodyguards stared; they didn’t know that he’d just figured out who was really behind his troubles, that he’d made a critical error in concentrating his animosity on Sano. But he saw that they sensed the defeat that hissed under his skin.

“There’ll be no coming back, it’s over for me,” he lamented. “All is truly lost.”

The men regarded him with fear for their own fate as well as his. His chief retainer said, “What shall you do?”

Lord Matsudaira gazed inward at scenes of his life that flickered through his mind. He remembered its challenges and satisfactions and woes. The scenes halted at the black impasse that was now. He laughed, a bleak, mournful chuckle.

“There’s only one thing I can do. If I’m going down, I’ll go on my own terms.”

Sano felt the fast rhythm of hooves before he heard the sound. It grew louder. The horsemen galloped onto the field, more than a hundred strong. Some wore armor, some tattered cotton clothes; some were armed with spears or with bows and arrows; all wore swords. The audience cheered the ragtag army’s arrival. The lead rider shouted at Sano, “Free your prisoner!”

His tall figure was regal despite his mismatched armor. The visor of his battered metal helmet covered his face, but Sano recognized him instantly. He expelled his breath in satisfaction.

The newcomers ranged themselves against Sano and his troops, on the opposite side of Yoritomo. Sano said, “Greetings, Yanagisawa-san. We meet again.”

Gasps rose from the daimyo and officials, none of whom had expected Yanagisawa to reappear now, or ever. The shogun squinted and said, “Yanagisawa-san? Is that really you?”

Yanagisawa removed his helmet. Everyone who knew him, including Sano, stared in astonishment: His head was shaved bald. But his face was as handsome as ever, his expression as malevolent and cunning.

“How did you get here?” the shogun cried, so excited that he jumped off the roof of his palanquin. Sano saw that he was overjoyed to see his old friend; he must have been hoping all along that Yanagisawa would come back to him someday.

“By ship, by foot, and by horseback,” Yanagisawa answered the shogun, but watched Sano. “It’s a long story. Perhaps we could discuss it later.” He looked down at Yoritomo, and his expression turned anxious. “Son? Are you all right?”

Yoritomo didn’t speak. Yanagisawa demanded, “What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s been drugged so he won’t suffer any pain,” Sano said. “You should thank me for my mercy.”

Yanagisawa’s glare said he would rather kill Sano.

“Why didn’t you return to me earlier?” the shogun said plaintively. “Why come as such a, ahh, surprise now?”

“I’ve come to rescue my son.”

“That’s no surprise,” Sano said, “but I was beginning to wonder if you would show up in time.”

Disgust tinged Yanagisawa’s smile. “So this is a trap. I suspected as much. Yoritomo’s trial was a farce, and so is this execution. Don’t think you tricked me.”

Sano was glad that his measure of the bond between father and son had proved correct. Danger to Yoritomo was the only bait that could have lured Yanagisawa out of hiding. “Don’t think I wouldn’t have killed Yoritomo if you hadn’t come. Don’t think I still won’t.”

“Why should you?” Yanagisawa said. “It’s me that you want. Leave my son alone.”

“He’s a traitor,” Sano said, “and he deserves to die even though he’s just your accomplice in your conspiracy to regain power.”

Shock appeared on the faces of the men around Sano as they realized the true nature of Yoritomo’s crimes and the fact that Yanagisawa had been busy mounting his comeback.

“You won’t kill him.” Yanagisawa’s controlled manner didn’t hide his anxiety. He said to the executioner’s assistants, “Dig him up.”

“Proceed with the nokogiri-biki,” Sano countermanded.

The executioner stepped forward. While the assistants held Yoritomo’s head and the executioner brandished the saw, the townspeople whispered excitedly. Sano saw spines stiffen and throat muscles clench among his samurai companions, and naked horror on Yanagisawa’s face.

“Don’t!”

Yanagisawa spurred his horse forward, between Yoritomo and the executioner. His men moved after him. Sano, Marume, and Fukida advanced with their troops. Sano said, “Back off. You’re outnumbered. If you try to take Yoritomo, you’ll both be killed in the battle.”

Yanagisawa stared at Sano with fury and hatred. “You don’t need my son. You’ve exposed me. Isn’t that enough?”

“Not nearly,” Sano said.

“Then what in hell do you want?”

“I want you to answer a few questions.”

Suspicion narrowed Yanagisawa’s eyes. “About what?”

“That’s for me to decide,” Sano said. “Agree now, or I proceed with the execution.”

The Tokugawa officials and the daimyo whispered in speculation. The townsfolk moved closer to hear what was going on. Yanagisawa hesitated, sensing a trap within the trap.

“Dear me, Sano-san, you’re not really going to kill him?” the shogun piped up fretfully. “When I agreed to go along with whatever you did, I didn’t, ahh, realize you would go so far.”

“All right,” Yanagisawa said in a voice that promised Sano retribution. “What do you want to know?”

“Were you responsible for the bombing of Lord Matsudaira’s estate?” Sano asked.

Yanagisawa gleamed with sardonic satisfaction. “Oh, you finally figured that out? Congratulations.”

“So you have agents who followed your orders to throw the firebomb?” Sano said, hammering in the point in case anyone had missed it.

“Well, yes,” Yanagisawa said. “I couldn’t exactly stroll up to the castle gate, give my name, and say, ‘I’m here to bomb Lord Matsudaira’s estate. Let me in.’”

On the periphery of the execution ground, two mounted samurai edged toward the road. Sano called, “If you’re planning to run to Lord Matsudaira and break the news, don’t leave yet. He’ll want to hear the rest.”

The horsemen halted. Sano said to Yanagisawa, “Were you also responsible for ambushing my wife?”

“Guilty as charged.” Yanagisawa glanced at Yoritomo. His flippant manner didn’t hide his growing panic.

“What about the previous attacks, on Lord Matsudaira’s troops and mine?” Sano asked. “Were they your doing, too?”

“You should thank me,” Yanagisawa retorted. “I did for you and Lord Matsudaira what you both wanted to do to each other but were too cowardly to risk.”

“So you sent your underground rebels in disguise to attack us and goad us into a war. Neither of us is to blame.”

“It’s about time you gave credit where credit is due.”

Sano addressed the two waiting horsemen: “You can go now.” As they galloped away, Sano hoped they would reach Lord Matsudaira before his assassins struck again.

“Are we finished with these questions?” Yanagisawa said.

Whether Lord Matsudaira would believe Yanagisawa’s confession, let go of his hostility toward Sano, and call off his dogs was beyond Sano’s control. Sano concentrated on wringing the maximum value out of Yanagisawa. “Far from it. Let’s talk about an actor by the name of Arashi Kodenji. Do you know him?”

Yanagisawa’s expression turned wary: He knew the conversation was headed into dangerous territory. He looked at Yoritomo, buried up to the neck in the dirt, his head covered, as vulnerable as a swaddled baby. “Yes.”

“For everyone’s information, Arashi is the man we knew as Egen, tutor to the shogun’s murdered cousin,” Sano announced. “But he was only acting the role.”

Confusion rumbled among both audiences. Sano’s colleagues hadn’t heard the news, and the townsfolk weren’t familiar with the story behind this drama. Sano said, “Did you hire Arashi to impersonate the tutor and slander my mother?”

“Yes, and you fell for it.” Yanagisawa couldn’t resist enjoying his own cleverness and Sano’s gullibility. “I’d have given a lot to be there.”

“You didn’t need to be there. You had eyes and ears inside the castle,” Sano said, pointing at Yoritomo. “Did you kill Arashi after you paid him off?”

The audience stirred with consternation and excitement as Sano’s colleagues realized that Yanagisawa had interfered with matters besides the conflict between Sano and Lord Matsudaira. Even the townsfolk realized that Sano was forcing Yanagisawa to put himself in jeopardy.

“Arashi was supposed to leave town as soon as he’d testified against your mother.” A tremor in his voice betrayed how frantic Yanagisawa was to save Yoritomo. “Instead, he hung around, and he couldn’t keep his big mouth shut. Sooner or later he’d have told someone I’d hired him. He’d have spread the word that I was back from exile. He had to go.”

“I take it that means yes, you ordered his death,” Sano said.

Yanagisawa hastily added, “He was a peasant, a nobody. What does it matter?”

A samurai had the legal right to kill a peasant. “It matters that you interfered with a murder investigation ordered by His Excellency, and this particular peasant was a key witness.” Sano turned to the shogun. “Yanagisawa told Lord Arima to arrange the murder. Lord Arima recruited two of my soldiers and sent them to do Yanagisawa’s dirty work. They killed Arashi, but on his orders, not mine. His confession is the proof of my innocence.”

“Yes, I see,” the shogun said, trying to sound as if he did. “Chamberlain Sano, excuse me for suspecting you. Consider the accusation against you, ahh, dropped.”

“How nice for you,” Yanagisawa said spitefully to Sano. “Enough already! Free my son!”

“One more question,” Sano said. “Was it your troops, and not Lord Matsudaira’s, who attacked His Excellency’s yesterday?”

Yanagisawa’s face went livid with anger and fright because Sano had named the final price for his son’s freedom: He must admit to the attack, which constituted treason. He said, “I most certainly did not.”

“Tell the truth, or your son dies,” Sano said. “You ordered Lord Arima to tell His Excellency that his cousin wanted to overthrow him. You sent your troops after his, wearing Lord Matsudaira’s crest. You wanted His Excellency to go to war with Lord Matsudaira and crush him. It was all part of your plan.”

“You’re dreaming,” Yanagisawa said contemptuously.

Sano shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He nodded to the executioner, who applied the saw to Yoritomo’s neck. “Here we go.”

“No!” squealed the shogun.

“Stop!” Yanagisawa charged at the executioner.

The executioner dodged. Yanagisawa’s troops galloped around the pit, scattering the assistants. Sano, the detectives, and their troops rushed Yanagisawa, swords drawn. The fray swirled around Yoritomo’s head like a storm circling its eye. Sano and his forces drove Yanagisawa away from Yoritomo. With an outraged cry, Yanagisawa rode at the townsfolk. He jumped off his horse and caught a little girl. He drew his sword, held it against her throat, and shouted, “Let Yoritomo go, or she’s dead!”

Sano stared in horror. The girl was perhaps six years old, with round cheeks, hair tied in two ponytails, chubby in her padded blue kimono. Helpless in Yanagisawa’s grasp, she cried, “Mama, Mama!”

Her parents begged Yanagisawa to let her go. The crowd around them agitated because the drama had suddenly turned too real. Sano couldn’t sacrifice an innocent child, and Yanagisawa knew it, just as Sano had known Yanagisawa would come to rescue his son. They were aware of each other’s weaknesses after their many years as sometimes rivals, sometimes comrades.

Yanagisawa bared his teeth in a fierce smile. “Her life in exchange for Yoritomo’s.”

“All right.” Sano dismounted beside Yoritomo’s head, beckoned to Yanagisawa, and said, “Put her down, and I’ll call off the execution.”

Gripping his terrified little hostage, Yanagisawa walked toward Sano. Their troops and the spectators moved back in a wide circle around them. “That’s not all I want,” Yanagisawa said. “I want a safe passage out of here for Yoritomo and me. I want your promise that you won’t touch us.”

“I promise,” Sano said.

Grumbles from the samurai in the audience said they deplored Sano’s caving in. Sano nodded to the executioner’s assistants. They took up their shovels.

Yanagisawa’s lip curled with contempt. “If you were any other man, I wouldn’t trust your promise, Sano-san. But your honor has always been your downfall and my blessing.”

He flung the girl away from him. As her parents rushed up and carried her to safety, he hastened toward Yoritomo.

“Not this time,” Sano said.

He gripped his sword in both hands, swung it up, and brought it down in a vicious arc. The blade struck Yoritomo’s neck, slicing through flesh and bone. Yoritomo’s head fell on the ground with a thud that drowned in the cries of astonishment that rose from the crowd.

“No!” Yanagisawa screamed.

His face was so twisted by rage and grief that he barely looked human. He fell on his knees beside Yoritomo’s head. Sano saw everyone including his own troops, except for his detectives, gazing at him in shock: They hadn’t thought him capable of what he’d done. Vengeful satisfaction filled Sano. Let Yanagisawa suffer the worst agony that a father who loved his son could. Let him pay the price for all the trouble he’d ever caused Sano, the political strife he’d fomented, the violence his actions had provoked.

As Yanagisawa cradled the head in his lap, sobbed, and tugged off the hood, the spectators’ expressions changed from shock to puzzlement. “There’s no blood,” someone said.

Blood hadn’t gushed from Yoritomo’s neck as it should have; none stained the ground. Sano’s sword was clean except for a dark smudge on the blade. Another cry rang from Yanagisawa as he beheld the head he’d uncovered.

“This isn’t my son!”

The head belonged to a man with cropped, bushy hair and missing teeth. His eyeballs were purplish and deflated like rotten berries, swarming with maggots. The neck of the body buried in the ground resembled a cut of old meat, shriveled and juiceless. The wind blew up a powerful stench of decayed flesh. The shogun turned away, doubled over, and retched.

Marume and Fukida grinned at Sano. They alone in the audience had known Sano’s whole plan. Sano had decided not to bring Yoritomo to the execution ground. He’d wanted to hold Yoritomo in reserve in case he needed further leverage against Yanagisawa. He and his detectives had obtained a body from Edo Morgue, dressed it in Yoritomo’s clothes, and covered its face with the hood. Sano had decapitated a corpse.

The assembly gasped, murmured, and exclaimed like a crowd awed by a magician. Yanagisawa hurled the head at Sano and leaped to his feet, his grief transformed into rage. “A curse on you for your blasted trickery!”

He lunged at Sano, drawing his sword. Sano’s troops rode into the circle to stop him, but Yanagisawa’s headed them off. Sano raised his blade and deflected Yanagisawa’s cut. The field erupted in riotous action. The commoners ran for their lives while Yanagisawa’s troops assailed Sano’s. The shogun staggered around, crying, “Help! Somebody save me!”

As he and Yanagisawa lashed at each other, Sano felt a bloodlust hotter than any he’d known in previous battles. It stemmed from their turbulent history together. And he felt the same heat, the same murderous intent, flaming from Yanagisawa.

“Where’s my son?” Yanagisawa demanded as he dodged Sano’s cuts. He pivoted, then struck and struck again, driving Sano backward into the battle that raged between their armies. “What have you done with him?”

“Yoritomo is alive,” Sano said as he parried, sliced, and forced Yanagisawa to retreat across the execution ground. He’d hidden the young man in his rice warehouse. “Surrender, and I’ll let you see him.”

But Sano hoped Yanagisawa wouldn’t surrender. He wanted to fight to the finish even though he’d intended to take Yanagisawa alive. His samurai heritage compelled him to conquer and kill.

Yanagisawa laughed with bitter scorn. “I won’t. Not after you’ve shown me what your promises are worth.”

As they fought, Sano experienced a strange sensation that the boundary between himself and Yanagisawa had dissolved. He knew every move that Yanagisawa was going to make. He parried by instinct; he effortlessly evaded strikes. This was what the martial arts masters called “oneness with the opponent,” the concept that a samurai and his adversary are partners in battle. Sano had always been skeptical about it, for how could he be partners with someone who was trying to kill him? But now Sano and Yanagisawa merged into one person. Their history fused with the mystical energy of warfare.

He was his enemy; his enemy was him.

Although their union improved his defenses, it played havoc with his offensive. Every slash that Sano launched, Yanagisawa avoided. Sano knew he was the superior fighter, but he couldn’t score a single cut. They grew breathless from attacking each other and missing. Sano saw, from the corner of his eye, that many of the daimyo, the officials, and their men had joined the battle. Most were fighting Yanagisawa’s troops, but others fought Sano’s. Yanagisawa had won many allies. Taking count would have given Sano a clear lie of the political land, but he was too caught up in his and Yanagisawa’s battle.

They circled each other around a gibbet, their blades whistling around the posts. They were both panting and sweating. If one or the other didn’t win soon, they would both die of exhaustion. Faster and faster Sano wielded his sword. Faster and faster Yanagisawa parried. Their blades were a metallic whir between them. Yanagisawa’s face tightened into a snarl, a mirror of Sano’s own face. Sano felt their blows ring through his bones. His wrists, elbows, and shoulders grew sore from twisting and flexing. He could feel the same pain echo from Yanagisawa’s joints. His sense of himself as a separate individual blurred.

Sano mustered his fading energy, put all his strength into each cut. He felt the spasm of a strained tendon in Yanagisawa’s arm, felt it in his own, heard the pained cry from both their mouths. Yanagisawa let go of his sword, which spun away through the air. Sano’s foot slipped in a patch of slime. Before he could regain his balance, Yanagisawa hurled himself at Sano. Together they fell.

They crashed to the ground. Yanagisawa landed on top of Sano and grabbed for Sano’s sword. His hands clawed Sano’s, trying to pry them off the hilt. As Sano fought Yanagisawa for control of the weapon, they rolled across the fetid dirt while horses stomped and riders battled around them. Their faces were so close that Sano could see his reflection in Yanagisawa’s eyeballs. They gasped each other’s breath. Locked with Yanagisawa in an embrace more intimate than sex with a woman, Sano felt their muscles straining, their pulses pounding with the same fast, furious rhythm, the heat in their blood rising.

It no longer mattered who killed whom. Sano gave up the notion that he deserved to win because he was good and Yanagisawa evil.

They were two incarnations of the same being.

Still, Sano and Yanagisawa grappled, struggled, fought with all their savage might. Stripped of individuality, reduced to the most basic principle of combat, they must kill or be killed.

A high-pitched cry rang out above the noise: “I order you all to cease fighting!”

Sano barely recognized the shogun’s voice. He threw himself onto Yanagisawa, who writhed and bucked under his weight. A tiny part of Sano’s awareness registered that the shogun stood on his palanquin, waving his arms and shouting, “I don’t like fights. Stop at once!”

Across the field, combatants retreated. The shogun’s word was law. Only Sano and Yanagisawa ignored his command. The sword was between them, their hands clenched around the hilt under their chins, the blade all that separated their faces. Sano forced the blade down toward Yanagisawa, who pushed it up at him. They clenched their teeth, grunted, and strained. They both knew the end was near for somebody.

Men crowded around them. Sano was seized and pulled off Yanagisawa. The sword ripped out of Yanagisawa’s hands and came away in Sano’s. Their mystical union snapped like a rope stretched too tight. Detectives Marume and Fukida wrested the sword away from Sano. Other men restrained Yanagisawa, who struggled to attack Sano. As they gasped for breath and glared at each other through the sweat dripping into their eyes, the shogun minced into the space between them. Placing one hand on Yanagisawa’s heaving chest and the other on Sano’s, he said, “Whatever your, ahh, quarrel is, you can settle it later.”

He laughed with joy as he announced to the crowd, “My beloved Yoritomo-san is alive. Chamberlain Sano is innocent, and my dear old friend Yanagisawa-san is home! Let’s all go back to the castle and celebrate!”

The celebration lasted five days.

Spring came. Gentle rains put out the fires that had plagued Edo and washed the air clean of smoke. Cherry trees all over town burst into dazzling pink bloom.

Inside the castle, the shogun and his guests feasted at a continuous banquet. Musicians, dancing girls, acrobats, jugglers, and magicians entertained. Theater troupes performed plays. The revelry spilled into the garden, where lanterns hung from the blossoming cherry trees. Men sneaked off for a few hours of sleep here and there, but nobody dared stay away for long. The shogun was in his finest, silliest form as he led singing, poetry-reciting, and drinking contests, Yoritomo at his side.

He didn’t care that Lord Matsudaira, the traitor, was dead.

After the battle at the execution ground, Sano had taken his detectives and a squadron of troops to confront Lord Matsudaira. Sano had intended to force his enemy to remove the assassins from his house. Later, he would persuade the shogun to execute Lord Matsudaira. He was sure Yanagisawa would help him with that, even though they were bitter foes once again. But when Sano arrived at Lord Matsudaira’s estate, he discovered that those efforts would be unnecessary.

The gates stood open; Matsudaira troops from all over the castle poured inside. Leaping from his horse, Sano asked the sentries, “What’s going on here?”

“Our master has committed seppuku,” one of the men said. Tears ran down his face.

Sano was disconcerted, yet not really surprised. “Why?”

“His spirits were broken by his arrest. He saw himself going down. And when he learned that Yanagisawa is back, that was too much for him.” The sentry gazed at Sano with sorrowful resentment. “He could have beaten you or Yanagisawa separately, but not both of you at once. He decided to end his life rather than face defeat and disgrace.”

Sano believed the sentry was telling the truth. The story must have already circulated through the castle, and the Matsudaira troops were rushing home to pay their last respects to their dead master. But Sano couldn’t quite believe that after all these years of escalating strife, his enemy was suddenly gone.

“Come on,” he told his men. “This I have to see for myself.”

They joined the rush into the estate, to Lord Matsudaira’s quarters. Sano and Detectives Marume and Fukida shoved their way past the horde of soldiers blocking the door. Outside the building, and in the hall, the soldiers talked among themselves, exclaiming in shock and grief. Inside Lord Matsudaira’s private chamber, all was eerily quiet. Sano and the detectives squeezed through the crowd of top Matsudaira retainers who stood in a circle around the death scene.

Lord Matsudaira lay fallen on his side, legs curled. His white silk robe was open, showing the zigzag slash he’d cut into his belly. The short sword still protruded from the cut, which had leaked crimson blood onto his skin, his robe, and the tatami floor. His hands still gripped the weapon. His eyes were open, but no spirit animated them. Sano saw on Lord Matsudaira’s face an expression of resignation, of peace at last.

“Wouldn’t you know,” Marume said with disgusted rancor, “he did himself in before we could.”

“Chamberlain Sano dealt him the final blow,” Fukida said, “by flushing Yanagisawa into the open.”

That Yanagisawa had turned out to be the secret weapon Sano had used to defeat Lord Matsudaira!

No one else spoke. Lord Matsudaira’s men were apparently too numb with shock to take issue with the detectives’ words about their master. Sano, gazing down at his fallen enemy, felt his anger and hatred wane. Even after all the evils Lord Matsudaira had perpetrated against him, he could sympathize with and even admire the man. Lord Matsudaira had taken the hardest rather than the easy way out. He’d reclaimed his honor. Sano only hoped that were he ever in a similar predicament, he would have as much courage.

Now, at the palace, Sano looked around the party. The shogun was singing out of key; he slurped wine between verses. He didn’t realize that his party was a staging ground for a reorganization of the political arena. Nor did he notice that the party revolved around Sano and Yanagisawa.

Daimyo and officials flocked to them like iron fragments to the poles of a magnet. New alliances formed in the vacuum created by Lord Matsudaira’s death. Sano and Yanagisawa never spoke to or stood too close to each other, but Sano was keenly aware of Yanagisawa’s presence, as he knew Yanagisawa was of his. Whenever their eyes met, their hostility flared, but each bided his time. Crucial matters had yet to be settled. Neither man could afford a wrong move.

On the morning of the fifth day, the shogun yawned at the banquet table. His eyes were so bloodshot, the skin under them so purple, his face so puffy, that he looked as though he’d been beaten up. He announced, “I, ahh, believe I’ve had enough celebration.” He rose unsteadily. “Sano-san, Yanagisawa-san, escort me to my chamber.”

Sano and Yanagisawa walked on either side of the shogun. He leaned heavily on them both. As they strolled along the corridor, they glared at each other across him. The game was between the two of them; it had been since the day of their first clash more than a decade ago. Lord Matsudaira had been a fleeting distraction. And Sano knew his showdown with Yanagisawa was yet to come.

The shogun didn’t notice their antagonism. Even though he’d seen them fighting at the execution ground, he seemed oblivious to the fact that they were enemies. After his fiasco with Lord Matsudaira, he’d decided that life with blinders on was more comfortable, Sano thought.

Yanagisawa said, “Now that I’m back, Your Excellency, I would be glad to resume my duties as chamberlain.”

“I would be just as glad to continue them,” Sano said.

“Must we talk about business now?” The shogun sighed wearily. “Ahh, I suppose so. I need to decide which of you will be my second-in-command. But it’s such a, ahh, difficult decision. You’ve both served me so well and so loyally.”

He didn’t know that Sano and Yanagisawa had both fought Lord Matsudaira for control of Japan. A conspiracy of silence still reigned. Only the conspirators had changed. This was the first round of their game: a competition for the highest position in the regime.

As Sano and Yanagisawa spoke simultaneously, each quick to put forth his best argument in his own favor, the shogun said, “Wait! I have a brilliant idea!” He smiled proudly. “You can both be chamberlain. You can share the post!”

Sano and Yanagisawa stared at him, then at each other, appalled. Two dogs plus one bone equaled certain disaster.

In her room at Sano’s estate, Etsuko packed her belongings. Hana said, “The palanquin is waiting. Are you ready?”

Etsuko tied the corners of the cloth she’d wrapped around her things. “Almost.”

“It’ll be good to get home,” Hana said.

“Yes.” When she’d been arrested, all Etsuko had wanted was to return to her own house, her peaceful life. But now the prospect seemed less inviting. She felt as if she’d taken on a new shape that her former existence couldn’t accommodate.

“I’m glad this awful business is over,” Hana said.

Etsuko donned her cloak. “So am I.” She was free of more than a murder charge and the threat of execution; she was rid of the burdensome secret she’d carried for forty-three years. The nightmares had stopped. But her journey into the past, and the glorious springtime outside, had revived vague, restless yearnings.

Sano’s chief retainer appeared in the door. “Excuse me, Etsuko-san. You have a visitor.”

“A visitor? For me?” Etsuko was puzzled. “Who is it?”

“Come with me and see,” Hirata said.

He led her to the reception room. Its doors were open to the garden of blossoming cherry trees. Inside, an elderly man stood alone. He was slight, with silver hair, dressed in modest cotton garments. His face was tanned but well preserved. At first Etsuko had no idea who he was. Then, as they walked toward each other, she looked into eyes that she had never thought she’d see again except in dreams.

“Etsuko-san?” he said in a familiar voice roughened by age.

Her heart began an uproarious thudding. Her knees buckled. She almost fainted. “Egen,” she whispered.

She heard Hirata say, “He saw the notices posted along the highway,” as he quietly left the room. Then she was aware of nothing except Egen. Time flew backward, and she saw the handsome monk she’d loved. He smiled as if he saw the beautiful girl she’d been. The illusion shimmered in the tears of joy that welled in her eyes, then vanished. They were two old people, their youthful love long past.

“Where have you been all this time?” Etsuko asked, still in shock.

“When I left Edo, I left my religious order. I wandered around Japan. I supported myself by digging canals, working on farms, loading boats-any work I could get. After ten years, I settled in Yamato.” That village was within a few days’ journey from Edo. “I’ve made a humble living as a scribe, a teacher, and a poet.”

Etsuko exclaimed in delight, “You became a poet! Didn’t I say you could?”

His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Ah, you remember.”

“I haven’t forgotten anything,” Etsuko said solemnly.

The memory of their ill-fated romance and their other troubles cast a pall over Egen’s features. “I heard about what happened to you. I came as soon as I could. I wanted to take the blame for Tadatoshi’s murder myself. Hirata-san told me that everything turned out all right for you, but I’m sorry I was too late.”

He’d cared enough about her to rush to her rescue! Etsuko was thrilled, but also dismayed. “How much did Hirata-san tell you?”

“Everything you confessed to your son.”

Etsuko averted her face as she relived the shame, humiliation, and pain she’d suffered in Egen’s absence.

“I was a selfish coward to leave you,” he said. “But if I’d known about our child then, I would have come back to Edo right away instead of waiting three years.”

Etsuko stared in shock. “You knew? You came back?”

Egen nodded. “I couldn’t forget you no matter how hard I tried. I went to Doi, because I thought you’d married him. He told me you’d lost my child and married someone else. He said you had a son, and you were happy, and I shouldn’t bother you because you never wanted to see me again. So I went away.”

Etsuko was aghast at what Doi had done. Bitter because she and Egen had betrayed him and drawn him into a murder conspiracy, he’d taken revenge even before he’d accused her of the crime. The shogun had pardoned Doi for his role in it, but Sano hadn’t forgiven him for accusing her. Doi had fled Edo. Nobody knew where he was.

“I did want to see you!” she cried. “It was all I wanted! I would have given up everything for you!”

“If you had left your husband for me, you’d have been the wife of a pauper,” Egen said sadly. “You’d have lost your son. Perhaps things turned out for the best.”

Etsuko saw that good things had come of their separation. She’d grown to love and respect her husband. She had Sano, a son to be proud of, who had saved her from her past, whose investigation had reunited her with Egen. But she wept for their lost love. She wept because of guilt.

“It was my fault. I was the one who wanted to chase Tadatoshi. If not for me, you and Doi wouldn’t have killed him.” She fell on her knees before Egen. “I’m sorry. I ruined your life. Will you forgive me?”

He knelt, too, and she saw tears in his eyes. “Yes, if you can forgive me for abandoning you. But you didn’t ruin my life. I am responsible for what I did. And things haven’t turned out too badly for me, either.”

Although she couldn’t bear to ask, she had to know. “Did you ever marry?”

Egen shook his head. “I couldn’t. Not when my heart belonged to you.” He took her hand in his, pressed it to his chest, and said, “It still does.”

Now Etsuko wept with relief and joy. The spring was a time of youth and hopes restored, of a new beginning. But she still harbored painful regrets. “I wish I could have waited for you!”

Egen’s tanned face crinkled, all smiles. “It looks as if you did.”

Outside the reception room Hirata loitered under the cherry trees in the garden, watching Etsuko and Egen. He smiled, glad that he’d brought them together, moved by their emotions. His children and Sano’s ran and frolicked under the pink petals that fell like snow.

Midori came up to him. His senses tingled alive. He held himself as still as if she were a wild deer in a forest and any move from him would scare her off. They stood side by side, watched Egen place Etsuko’s hand over his heart. As the old woman wept joyfully, Midori said in awe, “They’re still in love. After such a long separation.”

Hirata fought the impulse to respond instinctively, as he would in combat, with a move that would defeat his opponent. He chose his words carefully, for much more was at stake than his life. “Yes. They’ve been apart since before we were born.” He paused, then said, “It makes our separation seem short.”

He felt Midori tense. “Perhaps.” Her tone was grudging yet thoughtful. They watched Etsuko and Egen happily conversing, catching up on each other’s lives, making plans. “They look so happy,” Midori said. “But they’re so old. How much time can they possibly have together?”

Hirata pondered, took a deep breath, and said, “Not as much as we can.”

He turned to Midori. She folded her arms, suspicious and defensive.

Hirata spoke urgently, from his heart instead of his intellect. “I don’t want us to be like them in forty-three years, looking back on the time we wasted apart when we should have been together, regretting the past. Because I love you. And I hope you still love me.”

His voice went gruff. It was harder to express his feelings to his wife than to conquer the most powerful enemy. “If she can forgive him for leaving her, can’t you forgive me? If they can make a new start, can’t we?”

Midori’s eyes shone with tears. Hirata saw in them her pain, her anger at him, and her fear that he would leave her again. The mystic martial arts still exercised a powerful hold over him. He must pursue his destiny wherever it led him, whenever it called. And Midori knew that if they were to go on, she must learn to cope in his absences. He also saw love for him in her eyes. He held his breath. Was her love strong enough that she thought brief periods of time together were better than nothing?

Was he strong and wise enough to deserve her love, to preserve their marriage, against all odds?

Midori said, “I suppose we can try.”

Reiko sat in the pavilion in the garden, amid the pink blaze of cherry blossoms. She was glad to be home. She was glad she’d lived to see this day.

Lord Matsudaira was gone, her family safe from him. After his death, his retainers had flocked to pledge their service to Sano. Joining their lord’s enemy’s camp was preferable to a disgraceful existence as masterless samurai. One had offered a gift to convince Sano to take him in: He’d identified the assassins sent to kill Sano’s children. Those men had been executed.

Reiko watched Masahiro run about the garden with Akiko. They rolled in the pink blanket of petals that covered the grass. Masahiro laughed, carefree for once, his obsession with martial arts practice temporarily forgotten. He’d regained his childhood, at least for today. Reiko was glad of that. But she felt no peace.

She grieved for Lieutenant Asukai. She’d left the estate for the first time since the ambush during which he’d saved her life, in order to attend his funeral. She would miss him forever. And she was concerned about Sano.

He’d returned to her five days ago, weary but elated. He’d told her that he’d forced Yanagisawa to surface, and Lord Matsudaira was dead. He’d also told her the details about how his mother had confessed to the murder and the shogun had overheard. After summarizing the consequences, he’d said, “The shogun is hosting a banquet to celebrate Yanagisawa’s homecoming. He expects me to be there. I have to go.”

Reiko hadn’t seen him since, except from a distance, when he came home once in a while to sleep or tend to official business. They hadn’t discussed his mother. Reiko had used the time while he was gone to woo her daughter, employing treats and gentle talk, as one might a wild rabbit. Even though Akiko was still shy, she no longer screamed whenever she saw Reiko.

Now Akiko came running up to the pavilion. She held a sprig of cherry blossoms. She stopped and regarded Reiko with somber black eyes. Reiko smiled and said, “Come here, Akiko. Show me your flowers.”

For a long moment Akiko didn’t move. Then she slowly, hesitantly, climbed the steps of the pavilion. She extended the flowers to Reiko, who accepted them. Then Akiko ran off to play. Reiko’s eyes stung. She felt new hope for a reconciliation.

Then she saw Sano walking across the garden toward her, his face closed and stoic. Her heart began to pound with anxiety for him. He entered the pavilion and crouched beside her. He didn’t look at her, and she kept her eyes averted from him because she perceived that he was trying to contain his emotions and wouldn’t welcome her scrutiny. She waited until the silence grew unbearable.

“Has anything happened?” she said, hesitant to speak but eager for news, political and personal.

“The shogun has given the post of chamberlain to both Yanagisawa and me.” Sano’s voice was calm, controlled. “It looks as if we’ll be fighting our battle to the finish while running the government together.”

Reiko was astounded. “That’s another in the recent series of shocks.”

“But not the biggest.” Sano turned to her, and Reiko saw disbelief, astonishment, hurt, and anger on his face. “You were right about my mother.”

Reiko felt no triumph. She couldn’t throw in his face the fact that he’d been wrong. “I’m sorry,” she said, feeling his pain as her own.

“Even though I saved her, even though I’m glad, I can’t accept what she did,” Sano said. “She has the blood of my lord’s kin on her hands.”

This was a sin that any honorable samurai would find difficult to overlook, no matter the circumstances, Reiko knew. She herself hadn’t known how to treat her mother-in-law. When she’d returned home, she hadn’t known what to say to Etsuko.

Etsuko had spoken first. “Honorable Daughter-in-law, I killed the shogun’s cousin-just as you thought. I’ll explain why, if you like.” Her quiet manner had a new confidence and dignity. “But I’m a murderess, and if you want me out of your house, I’ll leave at once.”

Reiko was too surprised to say anything but no, Etsuko must stay until Sano returned; he would want to see her. Since then, Reiko had been cautious with Etsuko, aware that they were on new, equal terms. Reiko saw that there would be no more condescending to her mother-in-law, who would no longer shrink before her. The truth had turned Etsuko into a force worthy of esteem. Reiko realized that they weren’t so different after all. Both of them were women with strong principles, who would risk their lives and flout convention for a good cause. Reiko began to like her mother-in-law better than she’d ever thought possible. Perhaps they could be friends someday. Now she rose to Etsuko’s defense.

“Tadatoshi deserved to be killed,” Reiko said. “Your mother did the world a service.”

“I know. She probably saved thousands of lives.” Wanting to believe, yet unrelenting, Sano shook his head.

“She was a young girl who’d just been through hell on earth during the Great Fire,” Reiko said. “When she came across Tadatoshi afterward, it would have been easier and better for her to let him go. But she was selfless enough to think of the people he’d killed, the people he would kill in the future. And so she took justice into her own hands. She had courage.”

Although Sano nodded, the unhappiness in his expression deepened. “She also had the nerve to lie about what she did, not only to the shogun, but to me.”

That bothered him almost as much as did the fact that his mother was a murderess, Reiko saw. “But she finally told you the truth. If she’d done so sooner, you might not have had the spirit to work as hard as you did to save us all. Things might have turned out for the worse.”

Sano was silent, frowning, resistant. Reiko could guess at part of what troubled him, even if he wasn’t conscious of it. Throughout their marriage she’d constantly ventured beyond the limits of what society deemed acceptable behavior for a wife, a woman. Sano had continually stretched his own limits because he loved her, he wanted her to be happy, and he’d often benefited from her actions. But it was harder for Sano to live with the fact that his mother-the woman sacred to him because she’d borne and raised him-had also defied convention, broken the law.

“She begged me to forgive her,” Sano said at last. “I want to, but how can I?”

“You’ll find a way,” Reiko promised. “Because you love her, and she loves you, and she’ll do everything in her power to make it up to you.” Reiko thought of herself and Akiko, of her and Sano’s past quarrels. She believed that forgiveness was always possible where there was love.

Sano glanced at her. “I forgive you for being right,” he said with a wry smile.

Reiko smiled back, glad to see his sense of humor returning. “That’s a good start.”

He rose, gazed off into space, and Reiko saw his thoughts take a new direction. He said, “Not all my mother’s family can be dead. I vaguely recall hearing of the Kumazawa clan. Somewhere out there is a whole set of relatives I don’t know.”

“They know of you. Everybody does,” Reiko said. “And I’m sure they know that you’re from their clan. My intuition tells me that somebody among them has kept track of your mother all these years. And since you became the shogun’s investigator, then the chamberlain, they’ve been watching you with much interest.”

Amusement crinkled Sano’s eyes as he turned to her. “If your intuition says so, then I’d better believe it.”

“Why don’t you look them up and meet them?” Reiko said. She thought of the blood that joined her children and husband to their yet unknown family, the tie buried forty-three years ago and exposed by the murder investigation. She saw much uncharted territory yet to explore.

Sano’s expression showed reluctance, and perhaps qualms about how he would be received by the people who’d disowned his mother. “Not now. I have too many other things to do,” he said with an air of gladly dispensing with personal matters and moving on to business. “Yanagisawa isn’t going to cooperate with me for the good of the country. He’ll oppose everything I do. And the political scene is still in flux. Who knows how many allies will fall on his side and how many on mine? People are already taking bets on which of us will win.”

Reiko sensed his excitement and eagerness for the challenge. “There’s bound to be more crises, more treachery,” she predicted. She rose and stood close beside Sano. Together they looked at the blossoming cherry trees, at Masahiro and Akiko running under the snowfall of pink petals. Their gazes focused on the future.

Sano said with relish, “This should be the dirtiest fight ever.”