“Where did they take my husband?” Reiko asked urgently.
“To the palace,” Marume said. “Less than an hour ago.”
Masahiro rushed across the courtyard and up the steps. “I have evidence that could save Father!” Dirt and sawdust coated his hair, his clothes, and his sweaty face.
Alarmed, Reiko said, “Where have you been?”
“The dump.” Masahiro pulled a wad of leather from inside his kimono, unfolded it, and waved it at Reiko. It was a leather hood with flowers painted on it. “Yanagisawa’s investigators found this near where the fire was. The arsonist must have left it.”
“It’s a woman’s,” Reiko said, elated. “Lady Nobuko did set the fire.”
“They threw it in an oxcart that was going to the dump. When I got there, I had to dig through mountains of trash. But I found it!” Masahiro smiled triumphantly.
“I haven’t found out anything.” After confronting Lady Nobuko at the wake, Reiko had spent the day loitering near Lord Ienobu’s house, hoping to ask his maids about his and his retainers’ movements the night of the fire. But no maids had come out. Reiko seized Masahiro’s hand. “We must go to the palace at once and present your evidence to the court.”
“You won’t be able to,” Marume said unhappily. “I tried to go with Sano-san, to testify for him. The soldiers wouldn’t let me. They said he wasn’t allowed to have witnesses.”
“But the fire hood says he’s innocent and Lady Nobuko murdered Yoshisato!” Reiko protested.
“It’s the kind of evidence Yanagisawa is keeping out of the trial,” Marume said.
Midori trudged into the courtyard, dragging Taeko by the hand, saying, “If we get out of this alive, you will never, ever leave home again, do you hear me?” When Taeko saw Masahiro, her dejected expression turned into a radiant smile.
Reiko was horrified by what Marume had said, but she was relieved to see Midori and Taeko. “Did she go back to Lord Tsunanori’s estate?”
“Indeed she did,” Midori said grimly.
Taeko pulled free of her mother. “Masahiro, I found the witness again. She told me a story.” Her eyes brimmed with hope that it would please him. “She saw the nurse who took care of Lady Tsuruhime scrubbing her bed with dirty sheets.”
Masahiro’s jaw dropped. “So the nurse gave her smallpox.”
Astonishment flooded Reiko. “Taeko, you found out who killed the shogun’s daughter!”
“I did?” Taeko looked delighted and confused.
Midori looked dumbfounded. Reiko beat her fists against the veranda railing in helpless frustration. Taeko had solved the murder, but it was the wrong one, not Yoshisato’s. If only Masahiro had come home earlier! Sano might have used the evidence against Lady Nobuko as his defense during his trial. But the fire hood was useless now. It was too late to save Sano.
* * *
TROOPS ESCORTED SANO downhill through the dim passages of Edo Castle. A buzz of excited chatter in the watchtowers and covered corridors followed them as soldiers spread the news about his conviction. Sano was too stunned to care that soon everyone in Edo would know. An awful verse pounded repeatedly through his mind.
Yanagisawa won.
This is the end.
Sano felt insubstantial, as if he’d already begun crossing into the netherworld of the dead. The hardness of the pavement under his feet, the painful throbbing of his cut face, and the breaths that his lungs drew seemed a mere illusion that he was still on earth among the living. Tomorrow he would be tied to a stake and set on fire. But that wasn’t the worst.
What Sano dreaded more was telling Reiko, Masahiro, and Akiko that they would be burned with him. What he dreaded the most was watching them suffer and die.
His procession reached his estate. For the first time Sano felt no happiness, only sorrow, at the thought of his family. His escorts walked him to the courtyard, where army troops were massed. Reiko and Masahiro stood on the veranda with Akiko, Midori, and her children, and Detective Marume. The distress on Reiko’s and Masahiro’s faces turned to surprise, then joy.
Akiko clapped her hands and laughed. “See, it’s Papa. He promised he would come home, and he did.”
She and Masahiro ran toward Sano and hugged him. Reiko staggered down the steps, crying as she asked, “Were you found innocent?”
Sano couldn’t answer. The lump in his throat was too big. He could only watch Reiko read his expression. Horror dried up the tears in her eyes. She whispered, “No.”
The leader of his escorts told Sano, “Get in the house.” He pointed at Reiko, Midori, and the children. “You, too. You’re all under house arrest.”
“What?” Reiko said. She and Masahiro were obviously stunned. “Why?”
Sano couldn’t let them learn their fate from hostile strangers. He had to be the one to tell them, in privacy. “Come with me.” He hurried Reiko and Masahiro up the steps. He herded Midori, Akiko, Taeko, Tatsuo, and Detective Marume into the mansion along with them and shut the door. In the entryway he said to Midori, “Take Akiko and your children to your room.”
She obeyed. Marume said, “What happened?” He looked more scared than Sano had ever seen.
“I’ll tell you in a moment. Wait here.” Sano took Reiko and Masahiro into the nearest room, a reception chamber.
They gazed fearfully at him. There was no delaying any longer. Sano said, “There were three judges, all Yanagisawa’s cronies. I defended myself as best I could, but it was no use.”
He felt physically ill with a catastrophic sense of guilt as well as defeat. “They convicted me, based on fake evidence presented by Yanagisawa.” Reiko and Masahiro listened in horror. “But I’m not the only one who was convicted. Lady Someko testified that she heard both of you conspiring with me to murder Yoshisato. Yanagisawa sentenced all of us to death by burning.” He told the rest while trying not to cry. “That includes Akiko, and your father, and our other close relatives, and my top retainers and their families.”
His failure had doomed them all.
* * *
REIKO’S FRAGILE SELF-CONTROL gave way before an avalanche of horror.
They were all going to die.
Loud, piercing screams burst from her. They blared in her ears, savaged her throat, plundered air from her lungs. The strength drained from her legs; they buckled. Sano caught her and eased her to the floor. Masahiro looked terrified. Still Reiko screamed. She couldn’t stop. It was as if her spirit were having a delayed reaction to terrible things that had happened in the past. The earthquake. A near-fatal attack on her father. Masahiro’s kidnapping, and her own. The occasions when she or Sano had almost been killed by criminals. This latest, worst disaster had let out all her buried emotions. Reiko screamed until she was breathless. She sobbed until she was nauseated. She retched, but nothing came up; she hadn’t eaten since morning. The baby inside her rolled. A painful contraction hardened her stomach. She clutched it and panted.
Sano held her shoulders and spoke urgently, trying to calm her. But Reiko was so lost in agony that she couldn’t listen. As she began screaming again, Masahiro grabbed her shoulders and shook her violently. “Stop it, Mother!” When she didn’t, he slapped her face.
A gasp sucked the screams into Reiko. Abruptly quiet, she stared at Masahiro, shocked. He’d never hit her before.
“We’re not really going to die.” Masahiro sounded as if he thought things would turn out all right because they always had. He had faith in his own, and his mother’s and father’s, invincibility. He appealed to Sano. “We’ll get out of it, won’t we?”
Sano’s bloodshot eyes were dark with despair. Reiko saw the confidence and faith seep out of Masahiro. “Won’t we?” he repeated in a plaintive, suddenly childish voice.
Reiko and Sano looked at each other. This was the worst moment of their lives as parents.
Another contraction seized Reiko. She moaned. Sano looked around for help. Reiko saw him realize, at the same moment she did, that no doctor would come to t
he aid of a woman who was a condemned criminal.
“Here, lie down.” Sano pressed her gently onto the floor.
Reiko told him about the evidence that Masahiro and Taeko had gathered. “But it was all for nothing!”
“Never mind,” Sano said. “Breathe. Relax. Masahiro, bring your mother some water.”
What did it matter if she lost the baby? She was going to be burned to death, and the baby with her, tomorrow. Reiko thought of the woman she’d once seen tied to a stake. It had been a glimpse of her own future. She began trembling. More screams threatened to burst from her. Masahiro knelt beside her, a cup in his hand, his face white with fear. She forced herself to drink and smile. He and Sano looked momentarily relieved. The contractions stopped, but Reiko was too devastated to do anything except lie there while tears spilled from her eyes.
“How long do we have?” Masahiro said.
“Until tomorrow, after Yoshisato’s funeral,” Sano said.
Detective Marume came in. “Let’s hope it’s a long one.” His wretched expression said that he’d overheard everything. Nobody laughed at his attempt at a joke.
“Are we just going to sit here and wait?” Masahiro said.
“I guess so,” Sano said, then shook his head emphatically, pointing to the door through which the troops might eavesdrop. He put his finger to his lips, then whispered indignantly, “Of course not. Does our family ever give up without a fight? No! I have a plan.”
He was taking on the burden of upholding morale, as Reiko had done when he was downcast and weak. Love for him made her cry harder. She sensed that he didn’t have much faith in this plan of his, but he would pretend he did, to raise her and Masahiro’s spirits.
“What is it?” Masahiro said eagerly.
Sano whispered his plan. It seemed the product of desperation rather than sane, practical thinking. But Reiko, Marume, and Masahiro nodded. They had nothing to lose. And the best Reiko could do was support Sano in his impossible plan.
“We’ll have to wait until morning,” Sano said.
36
THE RISING SUN spilled a golden glow over Edo. Townspeople massed along the main street, waiting to see the procession that would accompany the shogun’s dead heir to Zōjō Temple. Troops kept the space outside the castle gate clear of peddlers hawking tea and rice crackers to the throngs. Nuns and monks sold incense, prayers printed on wooden tags, and amulets for the biggest funeral in recent memory.
Inside the castle, samurai and ladies dressed in white, the color of mourning, emerged from their mansions. They streamed uphill through the passages to the palace. There, priests in saffron robes, equipped with drums, gongs, bells, and cymbals, were gathered. Troops held white lanterns, and banners emblazoned with the Tokugawa crest, on long poles. Servants lit incense burners. Maids brought huge bouquets of flowers. White doves fluttered in bamboo cages. Bearers stood by the funeral bier—a miniature house that contained Yoshisato’s remains, decorated with flags and gilded artificial lotus flowers, mounted on two horizontal wooden beams. Everyone waited for the shogun and his entourage.
Sano’s estate was the only one in the castle from which nobody went to join the funeral procession. Inside the mansion, Sano stood by the front door. His bandaged face felt like raw, stiffening leather. The cuts burned as if carved with a hot knife. They throbbed in a warning rhythm.
In his lifetime he’d engaged in many subterfuges but never considered himself a good actor. Now he must act the role of a condemned man resigned to dying.
Sano opened the door and said to the two soldiers on the veranda, “I must speak with the officer in charge.” He hoped his voice was loud enough to cover any noise from inside the house. He didn’t have to fake his exhaustion or misery. “I have a last request.”
The soldiers looked at each other, then back at Sano. Their pity served his purpose. One fetched an older samurai who had a florid, pleasant face. Sano walked across the courtyard to meet him. The fewer guards near the house, the better.
“I’m Captain Onoda,” the officer said. “What is your last request?”
The last request of a samurai sentenced to death was a serious matter. Sano could see that Captain Onoda wanted to grant his, if possible. “Please allow me to fulfill my last duty to the shogun before I die. I want to solve the murder of his daughter.”
The last thing he really wanted was to serve the fool who’d defaced him and let him and his family be condemned to death. Yet Sano really did want to finish the investigation. If things went wrong today, he wouldn’t like to die with the case unsolved. He did want justice for Tsuruhime, whom everyone else seemed to have forgotten.
Captain Onoda looked impressed. “I’d like to help you, but I can’t let you leave the premises.”
“I’m not asking to leave. I think I already know who killed Tsuruhime. It’s the woman who nursed her when she had smallpox. Her name is Namiji. If I can just talk to her, I’ll find out whether she’s guilty. Will you bring her to me?”
Captain Onoda considered. “I don’t see how it could hurt.” He sent a soldier to fetch Namiji. He whispered to Sano, “I always thought you were the most honorable samurai in the regime. I can hardly believe you killed Yoshisato. It was wrong of you, but I know you must have meant well.”
“A thousand thanks.” Sano bowed, touched by these kind words, hating to trick the man.
* * *
INSIDE THE MANSION’S private chambers, Masahiro pulled out a section of drawers in the cabinets built against the wall. It rolled out on oiled wheels. He bent, inserted his fingers into a groove in the floorboards, and pried. A large, square panel popped up. The hole it had covered gave access to the space under the building.
Taeko, Tatsuo, and Akiko took turns jumping down the hole. They crouched beneath the house. Midori lowered herself into the hole while Reiko held the baby. Reiko handed the baby down to Midori, then awkwardly followed the others. They waited in the earth-smelling darkness until Masahiro joined them. Then they began crawling.
Masahiro led. Reiko had forbidden the children to play under the house because it was dirty and inhabited by poisonous spiders, but now she was glad he’d disobeyed. Despite the meager light coming through the lattice panels that covered the building’s foundation, he moved swiftly between the stone posts that supported the mansion. The other children and Midori, the baby riding on her back, kept pace with him as he angled under wings and corridors, around courtyards and gardens. Reiko lagged behind. Her heavy belly dangled. She felt the twinge of a contraction, but she didn’t stop until she caught up with the others at the back of the mansion. Through the diamond-shaped openings in the lattice Reiko saw the sandaled feet and armored legs of troops outside. She and the others huddled together, waiting.
* * *
SHOUTS BLARED. A soldier ran into the courtyard, where Sano stood with Captain Onoda. “That big fellow has gone crazy! We need help!”
Calling troops to accompany him, Captain Onoda followed the soldier. Sano trailed them to the yard where he and Masahiro practiced martial arts. Marume knelt on the ground, clutching a kitchen knife, surrounded by troops.
“Go away!” he yelled. An empty wine jar lay beside him. “Leave me alone!”
“He’s going to commit seppuku,” said the soldier who’d called for help.
“He can’t,” Captain Onoda said with concern. “Chamberlain Yanagisawa said that all Sano’s retainers are to be kept alive, so they can be executed after he’s dead.”
“Let me take my life honorably.” Marume’s eyes were red and teary from the vinegar he’d splashed in them. He reeked of the liquor he’d poured on himself.
“Seize him,” Captain Onoda ordered.
The soldiers moved in on Marume. He waved the knife at them. They leaped back. He tore open his kimono and held the knife to his belly.
“Surrender, Marume-san,” Sano said. “It’s the law.” He hoped his words didn’t sound phony and rehearsed.
“Please don’t make me,�
� Marume blubbered. “I don’t want to die in disgrace!” He was a much better actor than Sano.
They argued back and forth, deliberately wasting time. Marume grew louder, wilder. More troops rushed over to watch. When they stopped coming, Sano said, “Marume-san, this is my last order to you: Give me that knife!”
Weeping dramatically, Marume handed the knife to Sano. The troops rushed Marume, grabbed him, and dragged him to the barracks.
* * *
REIKO HEARD MARUME bellowing. She peeked through the lattice. The troops had gone to see what the commotion was. Reiko, Masahiro, and Midori tore off their outer robes and the younger children’s. They all wore white silk garments underneath. Reiko and Midori draped their heads with white shawls. Masahiro pushed the lattice panel. It popped loose. He scooted out from under the house, looked around, then beckoned. In the distance, Marume cursed. Midori handed the baby to Masahiro and crawled out next. She and Masahiro helped Reiko out.
The younger children scrambled after her. Tatsuo and Akiko suppressed giggles. This was a game to them. Taeko was as somber as Masahiro and the women. Reiko took Akiko’s hand and Taeko’s. Midori wrapped the end of her shawl around the baby and took Tatsuo’s hand. Everyone ran for the gate.
Masahiro opened it a crack. Reiko saw a flurry of white garments and heard the clap of sandals on the pavement as people going to the funeral walked past. Masahiro slipped out the gate first. Blending with the white-robed people, he ambled down the street. Reiko shooed Midori and Tatsuo out, then followed with Akiko and Taeko, closing the gate behind her. Draping her shawl over her face, she glanced anxiously backward.
Would Sano get out alive?
She swallowed her fear for him and concentrated on her surroundings. Although there were other children of Masahiro’s age in the crowd, Taeko, Tatsuo, and Akiko were the youngest. Nobody except Midori had an infant. Nobody except Reiko was pregnant. She felt dangerously conspicuous. Ahead, Masahiro loitered in the passage. Midori and Tatsuo caught up with him. Hurrying Akiko and Taeko through the crowd, Reiko joined her group.
The Shogun's Daughter: A Novel of Feudal Japan (Sano Ichiro Mysteries) Page 28