So the vulgar creature hadn’t lost all his manners when he revoked his samurai status. In perfectly refined speech, he’d just alluded to the fact that because of shared blood and loyalty to General Fujiwara, each of them would refrain from questioning the other’s innocence. Neither would turn the other in for any crime, even murder.
“Yes,” Chūgo agreed grimly. He needed Matsui’s reciprocal discretion, and he had another crucial reason for resisting the urge to kill Matsui: Eliminating one of General Fujiwara’s descendants would only focus Sōsakan Sano’s attention on the other three.
Still, Chūgo made a last valiant attempt to reject Matsui’s proposition. “But aren’t you forgetting something? There are two other people who know the secret. What if they tell?”
Matsui frowned, though with less concern than Chūgo had expected. “The woman O-tama could be a problem. But the other …”
For a moment, Chūgo saw the specter of Chamberlain Yanagisawa hovering in the room; he knew Matsui did, too.
“I doubt if we need worry about him,” Matsui said. “After all, the secret is more dangerous to him than us. But enough of your pointless stalling, Chūgo-san. Your promise?” He brought his cup to his smiling lips. “If you don’t give it, I may be forced to call in your loan.”
Chūgo glared at the foul, filthy creature to whom fate and blood so disgracefully bound him. Then he sighed. He lifted his cup and drank, swallowing his anger, hatred, and fear along with Matsui’s excellent sake.
25
From the promenade outside Edo Castle, Sano watched Chūgo Gichin enter the main gate. Defeat dragged heavily at his spirits as he waited a safe interval, then followed.
He and Hirata hadn’t found a way to see or hear what was going on in the shop, so they’d waited outside and resumed pursuit when Chūgo and Matsui emerged. But the imminent closing of the gates left the suspects insufficient time to kill. Chūgo had ridden straight back to the castle, and Sano expected that Matsui, too, had gone home. Now Sano returned to his mansion, but only to leave his horse before setting forth on the night’s second mission.
As he walked through the dim, quiet passageways, physical exhaustion hit full force. He hadn’t slept for two days, or eaten since afternoon; his head ached, and his empty stomach burned; his chin hurt where Hirata had hit him. Therefore he found great relief in being safe inside the castle’s walls, where no assassin could reach him. However, survival seemed his only victory in a day fraught with failure.
He’d seen his hopes for a distinguished marriage destroyed. He hadn’t eliminated Chūgo or Matsui as suspects, but had failed to gather evidence against them. Tonight’s fiasco had merely tipped the balance more heavily toward Yanagisawa’s guilt.
As Sano made his way toward the Tokugawa ancestral shrine, submerged anger burned through his unhappiness. His upbringing forbade him to rage against the code that formed the parameters of his soul, so he turned his anger on a convenient target: Aoi. Tonight he would find out whether his suspicions about her were valid—and make her pay for misleading him. Unwillingly he remembered their last meeting: her beauty; the yearning he’d experienced and knew she had too. Now fresh desire heated his blood and turned his anger to raw fury at the betrayal of what they’d shared.
Focused inward, Sano belatedly registered the sound of footsteps following him through the passage. They synchronized with his own almost perfectly. When he paused, they ceased until he resumed walking. His extra sense flooded him with alarm that he at first dismissed. Inside the castle, he was safe. He was simply reacting to two days and nights on the alert for an assassin by imagining threats where none existed. Still, his skin tightened; his bones vibrated in unmistakable response to approaching danger. Quickening his pace, Sano glanced over his shoulder. A curve in the stone wall blocked his view. He couldn’t make himself stop and let his follower pass, or turn back and challenge him. He couldn’t overcome the defensive instinct instilled in him by a lifetime of training.
Sano broke into a run. As he tore through around the passage’s winding curves, he heard his pursuers panting between his own labored breaths. Once the hunter himself, he was now the prey. Was this a game of idle castle samurai who sought entertainment by ganging up on a convenient victim whose humiliation—or injury—would bring them no punishment? Or was it connected with his investigation, and the earlier attack on him? He could sense the pursuers’ malice like a pressure current along his nerves.
A checkpoint loomed ahead of him. All hope of aid died when he saw the abandoned gate standing open. Where were the guards? Once past the gate, with his pursuers hard on his heels, Sano made an even more disturbing discovery. The guardhouses that ran along the tops of the walls were dark, vacant. No troops patrolled the passage. He was unprotected, alone with his pursuers.
Sano shot past more deserted checkpoints and open gates, endless lines of empty guardhouses and towers. Soon he began to tire. His heart felt ready to explode; his lungs heaved painfully; his body grew slick with sweat; his legs heavy as stone. An ache stabbed his side. And still the footsteps pursued him, forcing him higher into the castle’s upper northwest reaches, farther from home, the palace, the guard compound, and other populated areas lower on the hill.
His cramp worsened as he pounded through the gate that led to the martial arts training ground. He heard the men closing on him while he skirted the pond and swerved around archery targets. He dashed past sheds and stables, then across a road, into the Fukiage, the castle’s forest preserve, where he could surely lose his pursuers.
The towering pines enclosed him in their dark, whispering hush. Spurning the gravel paths that led to gardens and picnic grounds, Sano wove his way between trees, trying to run softly on ground carpeted with pine needles. He’d reached the limit of his endurance; he must rest, or collapse entirely. Sagging against a tree trunk, he gasped for breath. Blood roared in his ears. He looked back toward the forest’s edge. His runaway heartbeat accelerated. Fresh panic seized him.
Moving toward him through the trees came two wavery spots of light. As he watched, three more joined them, then fanned out to his right and left. The men had brought torches to hunt him. He’d lost the protection of darkness.
With a groan, Sano pushed himself away from the tree. Urgency won out over his need to keep quiet. Low branches whipped his chest as he ran; gravel crunched loudly underfoot when he crossed paths. A torch flame appeared to his right, and he darted away, only to spy another coming straight toward him. Soon he lost all sense of direction. He could only hope he was moving toward the gate at the forest’s far side, through which he might escape.
Then, without warning, a small clearing opened before Sano—a woodland retreat furnished with two stone benches. He knew he should stay hidden in the woods, away from exposed spaces, but his lungs could no longer suck in enough air. The cramp bit him like iron spikes. As he tried to flee the clearing, he stumbled and fell to the ground.
Leaves rustled; branches snapped. Now the torches drew a tightening circle around Sano. Their fitful light and acrid smoke filled the clearing as the men’s shadowy figures emerged from the forest. Sano realized that they’d deliberately driven him into the Fukiage, to corner him here. With the last of his strength, he managed to stand, but too late. The pursuers emerged into the clearing, and unknown terror took on solid form at last.
The five tall, strapping men all wore armor tunics, with dark kimonos tucked into leather shin guards: the uniform of low-ranking castle guards. Swords hung at the left of their waists, stout wooden clubs at the right. Instead of helmets, they wore black hoods that covered the lower halves of their faces.
“What do you want with me?” Swaying on legs gone weak from exertion, Sano looked from one man to the next. His heart fell when he saw the rapacious gleam in their eyes. “Why did you chase me?”
Silence, except for the crackling torches, the restless wind, and his captors’ eager breaths. Then the leader, whose more elaborate armor marked his higher rank, s
poke.
“You will stop hunting the Bundori Killer,” he said, his voice muffled by the hood that didn’t conceal its deadly seriousness.
Sano felt a trickle of cautious relief. Had they only run him down in order to deliver a warning?
Then the leader flung down his torch and advanced on Sano, unhooking the club from his sash. The others followed suit. There was no mistaking their intent: to maim, cripple, or kill him to prevent future inquiries. A rush of fresh energy readied Sano’s body for combat; his hand sought his sword. Then he remembered the law against drawing a sword within the castle grounds. He hesitated before following his natural impulse to defend himself.
That moment’s indecision doomed him. Before he could reach his weapon, the man on his right clubbed his forearm. Sano gasped as pain sped up the bone clear to his shoulder. Again he tried to unsheath his sword, but the blow had rendered his right hand numb and clumsy. With his left hand, he grasped the scabbard to separate it from the blade, but another attacker’s club whacked his shoulder and sent him staggering across the clearing. Another grab at his sword earned him a crack against the thigh.
Now his attackers closed in and began showering blows upon him. A club to the chin snapped his head back and locked his tongue between his teeth. The earth rocked; he tasted blood. Then a swipe across the backs of his knees knocked his feet out from under him. The moon and trees careened across his vision as he pitched backward, but he didn’t fall, because a jarring swat on the back sent him flying forward again.
Taking advantage of his momentum, Sano lowered his head and drove it into an attacker’s armored stomach. The crash jarred his skull; the man grunted and fell. Sano threw himself upon the fallen body. Desperation gave him strength. While hands seized his collar and hauled him up, he wrested the club from his opponent. A smear of light on the ground nearby caught his attention. He snatched up the torch as the men dragged him to his feet.
With a savage wrench, he freed himself. Turning on his foes, he backhanded the club across a hooded face. He heard teeth crack, a howl of pain; the man dropped his club and clutched his mouth with both hands. Sano whipped the torch at the others. Three dodged, but it sent the other’s sleeve up in a woosh of flame. Screaming, he collapsed to the ground, rolling to extinguish the fire.
“Look out! Get him!” The others, who had fallen back, now rushed forward. One smote the torch a mighty blow that splintered it in two, leaving a short, useless stump in Sano’s hand.
Never an expert at combat without swords, Sano knew that his only hope of survival lay in speed, unpredictability, and all-out effort. In a whirlwind of motion, he flailed the club, alternately pivoting, lunging, and striking. He caught a shoulder here, a cheek there, always aiming for unarmored body parts. His strength burgeoned in the excitement of battle.
But his next strikes met solid wood as his opponents parried with their clubs. The gang, having recovered from his assault, landed more blows than he could dodge or deflect. Pain exploded on his shoulders, back, and face.
“Who ordered you to do this?” he demanded in a voice garbled by a mouthful of salty blood. “Was it Chūgo?”
The guard captain commanded all the castle’s soldiers, including these. He could have ordered both the attack and the necessary relaxation of security measures. Sano’s tormenters answered with only a cruel kick to the knee. He gasped his next question through a daze of agony:
“Was it Chamberlain Yanagisawa?”
As the real power behind the shogun, Yanagisawa ultimately controlled the entire castle and everyone in it. He hated Sano, and desired his downfall. And Yanagisawa was the prime suspect. Sano saw another blow coming, and instinctively flung up his arm to shield his face. He took the impact hard on his elbow, unable to stifle a cry of anguish. Through it, he heard one of the men yell, “Shut up, or suffer more!”
Sano, determined to learn the truth, persisted despite the pain and terror.
“Was it Matsui?”
The merchant must have many of the shogun’s retainers in his debt, and he could afford to buy whatever services he needed. Had he ordered this attack?
At a stinging crack on his wrist, the club flew from Sano’s hand. He heard a thunderclap when another blow hit his temple. His surroundings shattered into a crazed jumble of light and motion before his eyes. Gasping, he fell on his side. His tormenters’ raucous laughter echoed in his ears.
“Look at the great sōsakan! Down on the ground where he belongs!”
Sano couldn’t move. His muscles felt like pulped meat; blood and sweat soaked his clothes. His vision darkened; sounds faded. Finally he accepted defeat as he began the downward spiral into unconsciousness. They would beat him to death, and he was powerless to stop them.
Then a loud scream arrested his descent. A body crashed to the ground beside him. Shouted insults turned to yells of surprise.
“Who—? What—?”
Sano blinked in confusion as another of his tormenters flew backward as if yanked from behind. Then a slender figure, clad in black, appeared, and a puzzling scene unfolded. Amid the lurching, shouting attackers, the black, silent figure whirled and lunged. Its arms chopped the clubs from their hands; its kicks to their stomachs and groins doubled them over. A vicious swipe to the neck downed another man as he reached for his sword.
Sano closed his eyes to blot out what was surely a bizarre hallucination. His mind foundered in the black waves that washed over his consciousness. Time passed, but how much he didn’t know. Gradually he became aware that the noise and activity around him had ceased. He forced his heavy eyelids open. Above him, the moon’s image swelled and shrank in rhythm with the pulsing agony in every part of his body. Had his tormenters left him for dead? Then he heard footsteps, almost soundless, but magnified by his painfully acute senses.
They were coming back.
Panic restored Sano’s fading lucidity. Groaning, he tried to stand, but couldn’t move. A dark figure loomed over him, head turned and lifted, listening and watching in perfect stillness. For a moment, Sano saw moonlight silvering the curving line of a three-quarter profile. Then the figure bent. Firm hands grasped Sano’s arms.
“No,” he whispered, but lacked the strength to resist.
He felt himself hoisted across a strong back. The ground tilted sickeningly, then sank as the figure lifted him. With his last conscious thought, Sano wondered if this was his imaginary rescuer turned real, or one of his attackers bearing him off to a worse punishment than he’d already suffered.
Then another black wave absorbed all thought and external sensation. Sano tumbled into oblivion.
26
Warmth, gentle and enveloping.
The soft splash of water.
Pain, at first muted and remote, then gradually more intense and immediate.
Sano floated up from unconsciousness like a swimmer breaking the surface of a viscous ocean. His eyelids cracked open. A light, piercingly bright, formed a blazing sun in his field of vision. Sano groaned in fear and confusion. He couldn’t remember what had happened; he didn’t know where he was, except flat on his back and in danger. He must escape. His efforts to move caused excruciating pain that roused him further, and he sensed someone beside him, felt a soft touch against his chin. Panic focused his eyes. He gasped.
In the lantern’s golden glow, Aoi’s serene face hovered above him as she dabbed his face with a wet white cloth. The sleeves of her green and white kimono were rolled above her elbows. Meeting his gaze, she smiled faintly: a ripple of light across her somber features.
“You’re awake. Good.”
Sano sat up, wincing as his sore muscles strained and his head spun. When the world settled again, he recognized his own bedchamber, with its coffered ceiling, painted screen, lacquer chests and cabinets, and burning charcoal braziers. He looked down at himself and recoiled in horror.
He was naked, except for his loincloth. His body had been cleansed of dirt, sweat, and blood, but dark red and purple bruises stained
his arms, legs, and chest. Raw scrapes marked his knees and palms. Memories came rushing back: the wild chase through the castle, the beating. Now he recalled that he’d been on his way to see Aoi.
Placing a hand on his chest, Aoi gently but firmly pushed him back down onto the futon on which he sat. “Lie still now, while I treat your wounds,” she murmured.
Her husky voice soothed Sano’s senses; her beauty stirred his desire despite the pain. But now he remembered why he had wanted to see her.
“How did I get home?” he demanded, sitting up again. “What are you doing here?”
“The guard patrol found you lying unconscious in the Fukiage and carried you home.” Aoi’s eyes met his with perfect candor. “Your servants called me because I have healing skills.”
She gestured at the floor beside her, where Sano saw three trays holding assorted items: a stone mortar and pestle; ceramic cups and spoons; a steaming teapot; lacquer bowls filled with pungent, cooked green onions for placing on wounds to ease pain; saffron threads to be steeped in tea and used to treat shock; yellow turmeric powder for inflammation. The teapot gave off the spicy scent of ginseng—that venerated root, both tonic and sedative, that strengthened the body’s resistance to illness and injury. All these Sano recognized as common herbal remedies. Others, however, were strange to him. His suspicions about Aoi grew.
“What’s that?” He pointed to a bowl of slimy brown strips that stank like rotten fish.
Aoi’s forehead puckered in a frown of apparently genuine bewilderment at his hostility. “Skin of the mudfish,” she said. “To prevent festering. It won’t hurt you. Please, rest now.”
She extended the cloth to his face again, but Sano slapped it away. “And what’s that?” He looked toward a cup of mashed leaves from which rose an acrid smell.
“Hellodindron leaves and vinegar. To heal bruises.” Aoi folded her arms. In a tone of determined patience, she said, “I can’t help you if you won’t cooperate.”
Bundori Page 24