The Fire Kimono

by Laura Joh Rowland

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.
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  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.