“What the—?” Hirata said.
Behind Torai appeared five samurai. He laughed as they all blocked the alley.
“It’s an ambush!” Sano realized that there were too many men to fight. “Let’s get out of here.”
As soon as he and Hirata managed to turn their horses in the narrow space, they saw, at the opposite end of the alley, another squadron of six samurai. Police Commissioner Hoshina sat astride his horse at the forefront.
“We’ve got you, Chamberlain Sano,” he said.
Sano kept his expression stoic although he felt a sick, falling sensation as he faced Hoshina down the alley. Hoshina and his troops must have been lurking nearby when Torai murdered Lily, and they’d rejoined forces after Torai had escaped Marume and Fukida. After all Sano’s skirmishes with Hoshina, was this the end?
Torai and his comrades blocked Sano’s exit at the rear. After Sano had survived nine years in the political battlefield of the Tokugawa regime, had his luck finally run out?
He and Hirata were spectacularly outnumbered, at the mercy of Hoshina, who had no mercy. But Sano drew his sword. So did Hirata, in front of him. “Move,” Sano ordered Hoshina. “Let us through.”
Hoshina uttered a laugh pitched high with glee and nerves. “Stubborn to the end, eh, Chamberlain Sano?” Torai and his other men laughed, too. “If you try to get past us, you’re even more foolhardy than I thought.”
Sano envisioned himself and Hirata slaughtered in a fierce, bloody rout, swords hacking at them until there was nothing left except gore. His muscles contracted. He smelled the sweet stink of his own fear and Hirata’s even though they hid it behind their hard, calm faces. His mind worked frantically. He’d always prided himself on his ability to outthink his enemies. Well, he’d better do it now.
Sano turned to Torai and said, “We found Lily. We know you killed her.”
“So what?” Torai said, grinning. With her blood on his collar, he looked like an executioner.
“You ordered him to get rid of her so she couldn’t testify on my wife’s behalf,” Sano said to Hoshina. The longer he kept them talking, the more time he had to effect an escape.
Hoshina’s smile bared teeth that gleamed with saliva. “You won’t live long enough to tell anybody.”
But Sano noticed that Hoshina stayed out of his reach instead of moving in on him. Hoshina was afraid of Sano, even with the numbers on his side. He knew a trapped beast was dangerous. Sano took a little heart.
“If you kill me, how will you explain it to Lord Matsudaira?” Sano asked.
Hoshina sneered at Sano’s ploy. “We were bringing you to your trial. You resisted. You and Hirata-san were killed in the fight.”
“He’s not going to believe that,” Sano said. “He’ll know you murdered us in cold blood.”
“Even if he does, he won’t care,” Hoshina said. “You poor sap, Lord Matsudaira is finished with you. Why do you think he’s putting you on trial? He wants to find you guilty so he can get rid of you with a clear conscience and everything official and proper.”
“In that case, he won’t be happy that you’ve deprived him of my trial,” Sano said.
“Shut up,” Torai said, then called to Hoshina, “he’s just trying to stall you.”
Doubts flickered in Hoshina’s eyes: Sano had gotten to him. He couldn’t resist answering, “I’ll bring Lord Matsudaira around.” His voice brimmed with overconfidence. “I always do.”
“Maybe you don’t know that more of my men know what Torai did because they were with me when I caught him leaving the house where he killed Lily.” Sano could tell from Hoshina’s glance at Torai that he was right. “They’ll tell my whole army. It’ll come after you to avenge my death.”
“They’d never get through my troops,” Hoshina said, but Sano heard a falter in his tone.
“Enough of this,” Torai groaned. “Let’s kill them now.”
Sano played on Hoshina’s insecurity: “You can’t. If you do, you’ll be signing your own death order.”
Hoshina dangled between his preference for playing politics instead of taking direct action and his reluctance to appear weak in front of his men. Finally he said, “I’ll take my chances.”
“If you insist. You’ve been wanting to do me in for seven years. Here I am. Come get me.” If you dare, said the gaze Sano leveled on Hoshina.
Torn between his lust for Sano’s blood and his ingrained caution, Hoshina hesitated.
Torai cried, “Come on, come on, what are you waiting for?”
Sano knew that Hoshina didn’t want to be accountable for killing him. Hoshina looked furious because he knew Sano knew.
“If you don’t want to kill him, let me!” Torai begged.
Instead Hoshina said, “Quiet!” His mouth pursed as he formed and discarded ideas. He whispered to one of his men, who nodded and rode off in a hurry.
“What in hell are you doing?” Torai demanded, so frustrated that he forgot his subservience to Hoshina. “Get rid of him now, or you’ll be sorry.”
“Oh, I’m getting rid of him, never fear,” Hoshina said.
After some moments, a shout came from behind him and his troops. Hoshina beckoned down the alley to Sano and Hirata.
“Drop your swords and come over here.”
“If you want us, come get us,” Sano said.
Hooves clattered up behind him. Sharp steel pricked his nape above his armor tunic. Turning, he saw Captain Torai, seated on his horse, holding a long, pointed lance. “Do it,” Torai said.
Much as Sano hated to give up his weapon, he knew it was no use against all these troops. He and Hirata let their swords fall.
“Both of them,” Hoshina ordered.
Sano and Hirata threw down their short swords.
“Move,” Torai said.
As they rode forward, Hirata whispered to Sano, “What are they going to do to us?”
“I guess we’ll find out,” Sano said, calm even though primed for the worst.
“Stop,” Hoshina said when they neared his end of the alley. He and his troops backed up, spread into a circle in the street outside. Into it stepped four peasant men carrying a palanquin. Bearers for hire, they looked confused and frightened.
“Get inside the palanquin,” Hoshina said.
It looked to Sano like a slow ride to hell. When neither he nor Hirata obeyed, Hoshina told his troops, “Give them a little help.”
The troops dismounted, swarmed around Sano and Hirata, and dragged them off their horses. During a brief, savage scuffle, Sano kicked one man in the chin, punched another in the throat. Hirata butted his head against faces, kneed groins. By the time they were wrestled onto the muddy ground, three troops lay bleeding and unconscious. The others lashed Sano’s and Hirata’s wrists behind them, bound their ankles, then knotted the wrist and ankle cords together so their knees were bent and they couldn’t move. The troops tied their sashes around their mouths as gags and flung them into the palanquin.
As the door closed, Hoshina said, “Enjoy the ride. It’ll be your last.”
Reiko’s procession drew up outside the Mori estate. A horde of samurai blocked the open gate, shouting angrily, spilling into the street while rain poured down on them. Peering out the window of her palanquin, Reiko saw fists waving and tussles breaking out. Some of the men wore flying-crane crests on their armor. They were Sano’s troops.
Lieutenant Asukai dismounted, ran over to the crowd, and called, “Hey! What’s going on?”
A guard who wore the crest of the Mori clan shoved Asukai. “Get lost!”
One of Sano’s soldiers saw him and Reiko’s other guards. “Asukai-san. What are you fellows doing here?”
“We’ve come to see Lady Mori,” Asukai said.
“Forget it,” the soldier said as the Mori guards manhandled him and his comrades into the street. “Chamberlain Sano ordered us to guard the estate, but they’re trying to throw us out.”
“We don’t have to put up with the likes of you a
nymore!” shouted a Mori guard.
Reiko realized that Sano’s authority had weakened so much that the Mori retainers no longer needed to tolerate his occupying their domain. Clambering out of the palanquin, she shouted to Lieutenant Asukai: “We have to get in there!”
Someone in the crowd yelled, “Don’t let them drive us away from our duty to our master! Fight!”
Suddenly all Sano’s troops had their weapons in hand. Blades waving, they drove the Mori men in through the gate. Lieutenant Asukai beckoned to Reiko’s other bodyguards, told one to ride back to Sano’s estate and fetch more troops, then drew his sword. He grabbed Reiko by the hand. Let’s go!
Accompanied by her five remaining guards, they hurried after the brawling crowd and cleared the portals. Inside, men slashed, whirled, and collided in fights around the courtyard as Reiko and Lieutenant Asukai ran past them. Other Mori troops stampeded from within the estate. They charged at Reiko and Lieutenant Asukai. He slashed one down. Reiko’s guards assailed the others.
“Come on!” Asukai shouted to his comrades as he tugged Reiko toward the inner gate. But they were busy fighting; they couldn’t get past the Mori troops. He said to Reiko, “If we wait for them, we’ll get killed.”
“Then we won’t wait,” Reiko said, even though this was enemy territory, she was pregnant and vulnerable, and she needed more than Asukai to protect her. This was her one chance to clear herself. If she didn’t take it, she was dead anyway.
In the confusion of the battle, she and Asukai slipped through the inner gate. “Where to?” Asukai said, panting. He stared in surprise at the blood on his sword. Reiko realized that this was the first time he’d ever killed.
“The women’s quarters,” she said. “This way.”
Running through gardens, they hid behind trees and pavilions to avoid troops rushing to join the battle. They reached the wing of the mansion where the women lived. Lieutenant Asukai shoved open the doors. He and Reiko stepped into Lady Mori’s chamber, which was brightly lit with lanterns, hot and close. A familiar scene greeted Reiko.
Lady Mori sat with her ladies-in-waiting, a large piece of embroidery spread on the floor between them. The gray-haired maid knelt beside Lady Mori, holding a tray that contained scissors, needles, and skeins of colored thread. The ladies-in-waiting gasped at the two wet, bedraggled intruders who’d burst in on them. Lady Mori’s hands froze on her embroidery. The maid paused while offering the tray to Lady Mori. Their expressions went blank as they stared at Reiko. For a moment the only sounds were the women’s quickened breathing, the distant battle noises, and a murmur of thunder.
“Hello, Lady Mori,” Reiko said. “I can tell you never expected to see me again.”
Lady Mori leaned back as Reiko took a step toward her. Her heavy cheeks sagged and her full lips parted in shock. “What—” She groped for words. “How dare you come here? After what you did to my husband!”
“You mean after what you did,” Reiko said. On the way to the estate, she’d figured out the gist of what must have happened. Now she wanted the whole story. “I have some business to settle with you. And with your maid.” She turned to the woman. “Hello, Ukon.”
“Oh, so you’ve finally recognized me,” Ukon said in the brassy, insolent voice that Reiko now remembered hearing in the Court of Justice.
“I’m sorry it took me all this time,” Reiko said, “but you’ve changed since your son’s trial.”
Ukon’s hair had been black then, her complexion smooth for a woman in her late forties, her figure plump and fashionably dressed. Now she wore the faded indigo uniform of a servant. Her hair was solid gray; deep wrinkles etched her face. She was gaunt, as though her flesh had melted from the bones and muscles beneath the skin.
“Having a son put to death for a crime he didn’t commit will do that to you,” Ukon said. Her eyes gleamed with the hatred she’d kept hidden during Reiko’s past visits. She set down her tray of scissors and thread, as if to free her hands for a battle.
“He was guilty. Believing he was innocent is something that only his loyal, devoted mother could do,” Reiko said.
“He didn’t kill that girl.” Ukon was adamant.
“And you’re not just loyal to him, you’re deluded enough to blame me for your troubles,” Reiko said.
“You are to blame. You dragged him in front of the magistrate. He was so frightened that he confessed.” Two years hadn’t shaken Ukon’s certainty.
Reiko saw that she’d been right about Ukon; even though the woman had admitted nothing yet, she was the person behind Reiko’s troubles. “You’re also bold enough to take the revenge on me that you promised. But how did you happen to be here? Was it just a coincidence?”
Ukon smiled with a glimpse of decayed teeth. “Not just. I’ve been trying to get near you since the day my son was executed. I applied for work here because I thought it could lead to a job at Edo Castle, in your house. When you showed up here, I thanked the gods for my good luck.”
“Then you figured out how to make me find out what it’s like to be punished for something I didn’t do,” Reiko said, citing the threat Ukon had hurled at her in the Court of Justice. “You framed me for the murder of Lord Mori. But why him? How did you have the nerve?”
Lady Mori watched Reiko with an expression of nascent fear. She said to Ukon, “She knows! You promised me nobody would find out!”
“She doesn’t know anything she can prove.” Ukon aimed her scorn at Reiko as well as Lady Mori. “Just keep quiet, and we’re safe.”
Reiko saw that although Ukon wasn’t to be so easily pressured into confessing as her son, Lady Mori was a different matter. Reiko said to her, “Ukon couldn’t have done it by herself. At the very least, she needed you to invite me to dinner that night. What else did you do to help her?”
In any conspiracy there is a weaker partner. Lady Mori hunched her shoulders, like a bird trying to hide under its wings. She began to stammer.
“Be quiet!” Ukon said sharply.
Forgetting her fear, Lady Mori regarded Ukon with indignation. “How dare you speak to me like that? Show some respect!”
“My apologies, Honorable Mistress,” Ukon said, her impatience not hidden by her false courtesy, “but I’m trying to keep you out of trouble.”
“You promised there wouldn’t be any trouble,” Lady Mori said angrily. “And now this.” She pointed at Reiko as if she were dog dung on the floor. “I told you it wouldn’t work.”
No love lost between them, Reiko thought. All the better for her. “Why did you help her murder your husband?” she asked Lady Mori.
“I wasn’t just helping her. She was helping me,” Lady Mori said.
Reiko realized that there was more to the situation than she’d thought. The crime wasn’t as simple, nor the motive as straightforward.
“Shut your mouth, you idiot!” Ukon yelled.
Lady Mori drew herself up in a snit. “I have had enough of your uppity ways, of your ordering me around as though I were the servant, not you. I shall talk to Lady Reiko if I wish.”
“Talk, and it’s all over for both of us, you fool,” Ukon said. “She’ll have us put to death!”
They apparently didn’t know that Sano was on the verge of being deposed, the Mori troops were slaughtering his, and Reiko and Lieutenant Asukai would have a hard time getting out of the estate alive. Reiko said, “Tell me about the night Lord Mori died.”
“No!” Ukon grabbed Lady Mori and tried to put a hand over her mouth.
“Let go! How dare you touch me?” Struggling, Lady Mori said to her attendants, “Get her off me!”
They pulled Ukon away. Lady Mori wiped her face, smoothed her garments, and wrinkled her nose as if Ukon’s touch had contaminated her. When she turned to Reiko, the temptation to confess had overcome her fear. Reckless daring sparkled in her eyes. “Ukon and I discovered that we had interests in common. I’ll tell you exactly what happened.”
28
During the ride that se
emed endless, Hirata lay beside Sano in the palanquin. Facing in opposite directions, confined in a space so small they couldn’t even turn over, they squirmed in a futile attempt to loosen their bindings. They couldn’t talk around their gags, let alone call out loud enough to be heard by anyone who might help them.
From outside came the city noises of roving peddlers hawking tea, children playing, women chattering. Thunder punctuated the rhythm of the palanquin bearers’ feet. Hoofbeats signaled Police Commissioner Hoshina and his troops following the palanquin. Hirata thought of Midori and his children, whom he would never see again. Resisting the urge to struggle harder, he forced himself to lie still. He inhaled and exhaled the slow, deep breaths of the secret technique that Ozuno had taught him. He tried to tap his inner spiritual energy and the infinite wisdom in the cosmos that would enable him to save himself and Sano.
Red Chrysanthemum Page 27