by Steve Bein
“Mariko—”
“We took an oath. That’s the difference between a cop and a civilian, you know? You swear an oath, and then all of a sudden you’re different. But I’m not. Not anymore. And now I don’t have the guts to open that stupid box.”
“Mariko, you are different—”
“Han, I killed a man. Not in self-defense. He was just lying there, and I killed him, and then you and I covered it up.”
He tried to put an arm around her. She shoved him away. Instantly she regretted it; jostling him shot pain through his ruined right arm. “Dammit, sorry,” she said. “You see my point, neh? We got away with it. ‘Cause of death: massive blunt force trauma.’ And now I’m supposed to accept a medal for heroism in the line of duty.”
Mariko finished her drink; Han didn’t give her a new one. “You know what the worst part is, Han? The worst part is I’ve been here before. But Fuchida was different. Akahata was different. Those guys … I mean, they train us to take down guys like that. But this … this was cold, Han.”
“Good.”
It was the last thing she expected him to say. She couldn’t even think of anything to say in response. He’d short-circuited her brain.
Han met her gaze head-on. “Why did you do it? Because he deserved it?”
“No.”
“Because you were pissed off?”
“No.”
“Okay, so you weren’t playing vigilante and you weren’t a hormone-raging PMS monster. That’s what Captain Kusama thought of you, neh? Turns out he’s full of shit.”
Mariko nodded reluctantly. “I guess.”
“No, you don’t. You know. Now tell me, what’s the real story? Why did you kill Joko Daishi?”
Mariko didn’t want to tell him about Shoji, or about psychic links and foreseeing the future. She felt too weak. Instead she said, “This is kind of hard to believe, but I know his mom. Joko Daishi’s, I mean. She’s a friend of my old sensei, Yamada.”
“Whoa. Weird.”
“You could put it that way. Anyway, I figured I owed it to her. He was her son. I mean, you saw the ME’s report. You saw the photos. How could I just leave him like that? I couldn’t do that to her.”
“So you …” He looked at Glorious Victory Unsought, which hung in its wall-mounted rack above her bed.
Mariko nodded somberly. She couldn’t speak. As soon as her thoughts ventured toward what happened in that tunnel she flinched away, as viscerally as if she’d touched a hot stove.
Han was dumbstruck too, at least for a while. Finally he said, “You’re amazing.”
“Huh?”
“You’re face-to-face with a guy who killed over a hundred people—a guy who tried to kill you—but you, your first response is compassion.”
Mariko hadn’t thought of it like that.
Leave it to Han to show her what was going on in her own brain. She supposed he was right. He had to be; all the evidence supported his conclusion, and Mariko believed what the evidence told her to believe. She was a detective, after all.
She was a detective. She’d never stopped being one, not even in her darkest hours—not when she was wiping her prints off a pistol and a padlock, not even when she let her friend wipe a dead man’s blood off her sword. The unnerving truth was that being a detective made her better at being a criminal. Everything she’d done for the Wind she was just as capable of doing on her own. But compassion had to count for something, didn’t it?
It did. She saw that now. Furukawa tried three times to recruit her. What tipped the balance wasn’t some new argument on his part: it was hundreds of kidnapped children.
Would she do it all over again? She didn’t want to think about that. She wasn’t afraid of a yes; she was afraid of what it might mean if the answer was no. Now wasn’t the time to think about it anyway. She was in too fragile a state for that. Besides, she had things to do.
She sniffed, wiped her nose, and got up to open the box. The cap was on top. She plopped it on her head, covering her ridiculous mostly bald spot, and held the jacket up in front of her as if to imagine herself wearing it in front of a mirror. “Well? What do you think?”
“I think you’re fucked. You’re not planning on wearing that to the ceremony, are you?”
“Um … yeah?”
“Right out of the box? Mariko, you’re supposed to have it dry-cleaned.”
Mariko thought about that for a second. No one had ever worn this uniform. It wasn’t dirty. It didn’t stink. She was missing something.
“Wrinkles!” Han said. He’d have thrown his hands up in despair if only he had two good hands. Instead he managed a kind of flailing motion. “It’s a dress uniform. It’s supposed to look, you know, dressy.”
“I don’t really do dressy.”
“No shit.” He flailed again. “You’re unbelievable.”
“I thought you said I was amazing.”
“You’re a jackass is what you are.”
Mariko laughed out loud. It had been a long time since she’d done that. “You think Sakakibara will give me one more day?”
“Are you kidding? He’ll skin you, stuff you, and use you as a punching bag. His words. He said he’d hang you in the police academy gym so all the new recruits could whale on you.”
Mariko laughed again. “Okay, so what now?”
Han shoved the last of the beers in her hand. “Drink this. Fast.”
“Han, I can’t show up drunk to the ceremony.”
“Trust me, you’ll sober right up when you find out how much one-hour dry cleaning costs.”
*
“It’s about damn time,” Sakakibara said when Mariko showed up in her spotless, wrinkle-free uniform. Mariko’s eyes flicked frantically to the wall clock, afraid she was late. Then, seeing she was five minutes early, she realized he meant she should have done this two weeks ago.
It hadn’t occurred to her how many people would be involved in this ceremony. She figured the usual: someone getting pinned, someone to do the pinning, maybe a photographer or two. Her mother, Saori, and Han should have doubled attendance. The department’s pressroom wasn’t big, just a nice little stage and a few dozen seats. Most of those seats should have been empty.
Instead it was standing room only. A complete press corps filled the front row. All the top brass were there. The governor himself was on stage, chatting idly in the wings with the chief of police. No wonder Sakakibara was pissed about rescheduling this thing.
At the chief’s insistence, three reporters were moved to stand in the aisle so Mariko’s mother could sit front and center, her little pocket camera at the ready. Saori sat to her left, Han to her right. Mariko could see them through the door, which she’d opened just the tiniest sliver.
“You ready for this?” Sakakibara asked.
“Hell no, sir. What are all these people doing here?”
He shut the door. “Frodo, you took down the most dangerous criminal this country has ever seen. That’s the kind of thing the governor shows up for. So for once in your life, pay attention to etiquette. He’s going to give you a very deep bow. What are you going to do?”
“Bow back even deeper, sir?”
“Damn right you will. You’ll accept your medal, you’ll accept your sergeant’s tags, and you’ll do it without freaking out or getting weepy. Is that clear?”
Mariko smiled. “Yes, sir.”
He scowled at her, but it was a different kind of scowl than she’d seen from him before. “One more thing,” he said. “I suppose you think I’m pretty proud of you.”
“Are you, sir?”
“Hell, no. You did your damn job. What do you want, a cookie?”
Her smile broadened. “No, sir.”
“All right, then. Let’s get your damn medal.”
GLOSSARY
Amaterasu: sun goddess and goddess of the universe, from whom the Emperor of Japan is said to be a direct descendant
arare: rice crackers usually flavored with soy sauce or seaw
eed
Bizen: a style of unglazed pottery
bokken: solid wooden training sword, usually of oak
boryokudan: the term used by police, and in the media at the behest of the police, for organized crime syndicates in Japan (literally “violent crime organization”)
bunraku: a traditional art of puppetry using ornate, lifelike puppets
bushido: the way of the warrior
chunin: a midlevel lieutenant in a ninja clan (literally “middle person”)
CI: Confidential Informant
daisho: katana and wakizashi together, the twin swords of the samurai (literally “big-little”)
dono: an honorific expressing great humility on the part of the speaker, more respectful than -san or even -sama
foxfire: magical lights said to be carried by foxes or fox-spirits
fusuma: sliding divider, usually wooden and covered with cloth or paper, usable as both door and wall
gaijin: foreigner (literally “outsider”)
geisha: a skilled artist paid to wait on, entertain, and in some cases provide sexual services for clientele
genin: a low-level operative in a ninja clan (literally “low person”)
Gion: a district in Kyoto known for its geisha
goze: blind itinerant female, usually a musician, said to have the gift of second sight
gumi: yakuza clan (as in Kamaguchi-gumi)
Hachiman: god of war
hakama: wide, pleated pants bound tightly at the waist and hanging to the ankle
haori: a Japanese tabard (i.e., short, sleeveless jacket) characterized by wide, almost winglike shoulders, often worn over armor
hatamoto: bannerman, the highest rank of retainer in a lord’s service
hitatare: a robe associated with the samurai class, worn over a kimono and under armor
IAD: Internal Affairs Division
Ikebana: the art of flower arrangement
Ikko Ikki: a peasant uprising, largely disorganized and only nominally Buddhist, whose political and economic influence endured for over a hundred years
Irasshaimase: a welcome greeting said when customers enter a place of business
jizamurai: a low-level samurai not wholly removed from farming life
Joseon: a Korean kingdom of the fourteenth to nineteenth centuries
kaishakunin: person charged with decapitating someone who must commit seppuku; also called the “second”
kama: a short-hafted sickle for farming or gardening
kami: creative natural forces, often called “spirits”
Kansai: the geographic region around Kyoto, Nara, and Osaka, and the locus of political power for nearly all of Japanese history
katana: a curved long sword worn with the cutting edge facing upward
kenjutsu: the lethal art of the sword (as opposed to kendo, the sporting art of the sword)
kesagiri: in Japanese sword arts, a downward diagonal cut to the left shoulder
ki: life energy
kiai: a loud shout practiced as a part of martial arts training, usually uttered upon delivering a strike
kiri: a paulownia blossom, the emblem of Toyotomi Hideyoshi
koku: the amount of rice required to feed one person for one year; also, a unit for measuring the size of a fiefdom or estate, corresponding to the amount of rice its land can produce
kosode: a long garment similar to a kimono but with smaller sleeves
kote: the wrist, as a target for sword practice
kote-uchi: a strike to the wrist
Kura-okami: dragon-god of rain and snow
MDA: methylenedioxyamphetamine, a hallucinogenic amphetamine
mugi-cha: roasted barley tea, usually served cold
naginata: a polearm consisting of a curved sword blade on the end of a long haft
odachi: a single-edged great sword, curved like a katana
ri: a unit of measurement equal to about two and a half miles
ronin: a masterless samurai (literally “wave-person”)
sama: an honorific expressing humility on the part of the speaker, more respectful than -san but not as humbling as -dono
sarariman: “salary man”; a man with a white-collar job
satori: Buddhist enlightenment
seiza: a kneeling position on the floor; as a verb, “to sit seiza” means “to meditate” (literally “proper sitting”)
sensei: teacher, professor, or doctor, depending on the context (literally “born-before”)
seppuku: ritual suicide by disembowelment, also known as hara-kiri
shakuhachi: traditional Japanese flute
shamisen: traditional Japanese lute
shinobi: ninja
shoji: sliding divider with rice-paper windows, usable as both door and wall
shomenuchi: in Japanese sword arts, a downward vertical cut to the head
shonin: the highest level of commander in a ninja clan (literally “high person”)
shoyu: soy sauce
shozoku: the bodysuit, hood, and mask that ninja were (erroneously) said to have worn as a sort of uniform
sode: broad, panellike shoulder armor, usually of lamellar
southern barbarian: white person (considered “southern” because European sailors were only allowed to dock in Nagasaki, which lies far to the south)
Sword Hunt: an edict restricting the ownership of weapons to the samurai caste; there were two such edicts, each one carrying additional provisions on arms control and other political decrees
tanto: a single-edged combat knife, curved like a katana, ritually used in seppuku
tengu: a goblin with birdlike features
tetsubin: a traditional teapot made of cast iron
Tokaido: the “East Sea Road” connecting modern-day Tokyo to modern-day Kyoto
torii: a gate signifying the entryway to a Shinto shrine, usually composed of two pillars connected at the top by either a lintel or a sacred rope (shimenawa)
wakizashi: a curved short sword, typically paired with a katana, worn with the blade facing upward
yakitori: grilled chicken served on a skewer
yakuza: member of an organized crime syndicate; “good-for-nothing”
yamabushi: ex-soldier dwelling in the wilds as a criminal (literally “mountain warrior”)
yoroi: armor
yukata: a light robe
AUTHOR’S NOTE
If you’ve gotten this far, you’re three books in and you’re expecting a third author’s note. Dear reader, I shall not disappoint.
The first question to address in this book is where’s Kaida? Don’t worry; you’ll see more of her. She had a storyline in this book all the way up to the very last draft, but in the end the manuscript was just too long. It made more sense to give Kaida her own lead role than to whittle her down along with everyone else in order to trim the book down to fighting weight. So now she’s the star of Streaming Dawn; I hope you catch up with her there.
The next set of questions concerns the historical stuff. Toyotomi Hideyoshi is the most important historical figure in the novel, and as you may remember from Year of the Demon, he was the second of the Three Unifiers, the three great lords who united Japan in the late 1500s. His predecessor, Oda Nobunaga, was a ferocious fighter who brought a third of the empire to heel before being assassinated by one of his inner circle. His successor, Tokugawa Ieyasu, sat back and waited for Hideyoshi to bring all the Japanese islands under his rule, then ousted his heirs. Ieyasu built a house on Hideyoshi’s foundation, creating a shogunate that would last more than two and a half centuries.
One of Hideyoshi’s most important political advisors was his wife, Nene. Intelligent, genteel, and politically savvy, she was by all accounts an extraordinary woman. She commanded not only Hideyoshi’s respect but also Nobunaga’s, who wrote to her fondly and even took her side when Hideyoshi complained about her. Nene and Hideyoshi exchanged letters throughout his campaigns, and when she criticized his policies, he was known to change the
m. It is hard to overstate what a stunning accomplishment this was; Hideyoshi was no feminist, and the Azuchi-Momoyama period was not an era of enlightened gender politics.
In some ways theirs was a strained marriage, for she bore him no children and he did take other wives and concubines. When he died, his proclaimed heir was his son by his second wife, and one factor that allowed Tokugawa Ieyasu to cement his power was that Nene backed Ieyasu, not her own husband’s son. Thus while she cannot properly be called the Fourth Unifier, she was influential for all of the other three. No other woman in Japanese history can lay claim to a similar position.
Other events in Hideyoshi’s biography are also as I portrayed them here. He did boast that he would someday conquer China, and he went so far as to invade the Korean peninsula. (The conquest was short-lived.) He was ugly as sin, but quite charming in spite of that fact. To prevent civil uprising he issued a Sword Hunt that disarmed the peasantry, and this would have included the kama-wielding yamabushi that Daigoro faces in the hills near Fuji-no-tenka.
Yamabushi were a fixture of Japanese life in the sixteenth century. They came in two varieties, because the word is a homonym. In one sense, the yamabushi are “ones who lie in the mountains,” a monastic tradition of ascetic hermits. In Japan the tradition of seeking enlightenment in the mountains dates back to the eighth or ninth century and still lives on today. In the other sense (written with a different kanji for bushi) the yamabushi were “mountain warriors,” packs of soldiers, ronin, and martially trained monks who had turned to banditry. They plagued the countryside, and even the great daimyo were hard-pressed to manage them.
Fuji-no-tenka is fictional, but Atsuta Shrine is not. You can still visit the Shrine today; it is one of Japan’s most venerated sites. It is said to have been founded in the second century to house the remains of Prince Yamato and his fabled Kusanagi no Tsurugi, the Grass-Cutting Sword. Prince Yamato is a legendary hero whose story is told in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, the earliest chronicles of Japanese myth and history. His most famous episode is his defeat of the bandit kings Kumaso and Takeru, whom he ambushed in their tents by disguising himself as a serving maid. In another famous adventure, he was caught in a brush fire and survived by cutting down all the grass around him so the fire could not approach. Then he used his sword to redirect the wind, sending the flames back toward his enemies. (If it were me, I’d have called my sword Weather Dominator, not Grass Cutter, but different strokes for different folks, I guess.)