Laura Joh Rowland - Sano Ichiro Samurai Detective 01 - Shinju

by Shin

  "Miss Yukiko screamed, too. The young master ordered them both to be quiet. Oh, he was furious. And when the boy wouldn't stop screaming, he-he-"

  O-hisa's voice dropped so low that Sano had to lean closer to hear. "The young master grabbed his sword and cut the boy's head off." She buried her face in her hands and dissolved into sobs.

  Sano shook his head, mentally completing the story. The blood-spattered room; Yukiko's horror; O-hisa cowering outside the window. Lord Niu, his fury quenched by his impulsive act of violence, turning to the task of covering up the murder. Did he regret his preference for boys of his own class instead of eta or other commoners, whom he could kill with impunity?

  "Miss Yukiko fainted. The young master shouted for his men, then picked up Miss Yukiko and carried her out of the room." O-hisa's trembling voice narrated the scene as Sano envisioned it. "Then the men came. They took away the body. After they left, I could hear Miss Yukiko crying in the corridor. And I heard the young master say to her, `If you tell anyone about this, I will kill you!"

  So that was why Lord Niu had killed his sister. Yukiko's high morals wouldn't have let her keep silent forever, and Lord Niu had known it. And Noriyoshi must have discovered the murder, too, either by spying, or when Lord Niu failed to return the boy he'd procured.

  "He knew Yukiko would tell someone, so he killed her," O-hisa said, confirming Sano's guess. "If only I had spoken! She would still be alive. It was my duty to sacrifice myself for her, and I failed." She threw herself at Sano, hands scrabbling against his chest. "Her spirit haunts my dreams. To put her to rest, I must die. So arrest me!"

  Sano held her. "It isn't your fault, O-hisa," he said, deploring the ingrained loyalty that made her want to punish herself instead of Lord Niu. "If what you say is true, the young master is solely responsible for his sister's death. Will you help me see that he pays?"

  O-hisa's mouth fell open in dismay. "I?" she whispered. "Oh, no."

  "By doing so you can pacify Miss Yukiko's spirit," Sano pressed. "Please."

  "But what can I do?" Hope lit O-hisa's eyes, eclipsing the dread.

  "Come with me to the Council of Elders tomorrow," Sano said. "Tell them your story." And he would tell them his. "They will administer justice to young Lord Niu." Surely they couldn't do otherwise when they heard O-hisa's testimony. Daimyo's son or not, Lord Niu would be punished for a crime of this magnitude.

  O-hisa's eyes unfocused, and Sano watched her turn the idea over in her mind. Then she pulled away from him and hung her head.

  "No," she mumbled. "I cannot betray my master. For myself, I care nothing. But he might punish my family, too, and I cannot let him do that." She started to back away. "I must go now; I've been gone too long, they'll be looking for me."

  Sano knew the risk he was asking her to take, but he understood her position better than she did. "Lord Niu probably suspects that you know about the murder," he said. "He knows who was here that night. For now, he's content to let you live, because the fewer servants who know of his habits, the better. But even if you continue to say nothing, he may decide it's safer to kill you anyway, just as he did Miss Yukiko. The only way to protect yourself and your family is to deliver him to the authorities before he can act. Don't you see?"

  O-hisa's mouth worked silently. Her eyes darted from side to side as if trying to see an alternative to this scenario.

  Finally she said, "Yes. All right. The young master returns to Edo tomorrow morning, I and the other servants as well. I will go with you to the Council of Elders then."

  "Thank you, O-hisa." Sano hid his relief under a businesslike manner. "Shall we meet somewhere at noon?" Knowing it wouldn't be safe for either of them if he went to the yashiki, he cast about for another rendezvous place. "How about in front of Musashi the swordmaker's." he suggested, choosing a well-known business in Nihonbashi.

  "Yes. All right. Good-bye." O-hisa bowed hastily, then turned and scurried off toward the servants' quarters.

  Sano watched her go. Would she change her mind between now and tomorrow? Would she talk about their plan with the other servants, who might report it to Lord Niu? He had no time to worry about that now. So far he'd been lucky; the guards hadn't seen him. He should leave before they came. Besides, he was wet to the skin and so cold that his hands and feet had lost all feeling.

  Still he hesitated, remembering the guards' conversation, Lord Niu's impatience, and the banquet preparations. What other sinister happenings might they foreshadow? More revelations about Lord Niu's motives?

  Sano crept through the woods until he could see the front of the house. Crouching inside a triangle of thick tree trunks, he watched. Soon he heard hoofbeats on the road outside the wall.

  The gate opened to admit two mounted samurai who cantered up the torchlit path, dismounted, and vanished inside the main house. A few moments later, another pair came, then a lone man. Then more, always singly or in pairs. Soon twenty horses stood outside the door. Sano wished he could see into the house. This gathering must have some secret purpose; otherwise, Lord Niu could have held it in greater comfort and convenience at the yashiki.

  A sudden movement on the left edge of his field of vision made Sano turn his head. Two spots of light had appeared at the side of the house near where he'd met O-hisa. They began moving toward him. In another moment, he saw the guards' bulky figures illuminated by the lanterns they carried. A needle of fear pierced his chest as their voices reached him:

  "The housekeeper said she heard a stranger's voice out here."

  "Probably just imagining things, the stupid old hen."

  "Can't take that chance."

  A shrill whistle split the air. To Sano's dismay, one of the guards left the front entrance and hurried to meet the others. Twigs snapped as they converged on him. They were less than a hundred paces away.

  Sano turned and ran, away from the house, into the dark woods. He tried to move silently, but he couldn't see where he was going. Invisible branches shot out to rasp against him; unseen puddles splashed under his feet.

  "I think I hear something over there."

  The guards came thrashing through the woods after him. An arrow sang past his ear to land in the ground somewhere beyond his sight. Another thunked into a tree he'd just passed. Sano lunged for cover, falling flat on his belly. He lay still as the guards' footsteps stopped, then began to approach again, cautiously, stealthily. Fighting panic, he half-crawled, half-slithered over grass and mud. He bit back a cry as he tumbled down a short but steep incline. His hands and knees struck stony ground. Nearby a small brook gleamed faintly, reflecting starlight from patches of clear sky between the fleeing rain clouds. Then Sano found sanctuary in the form of a great dead tree stump that stood at the top of the incline. Its gnarled roots made a cave at the water's edge. He scuttled into the cave, drawing as far back from the entrance as he could.

  Quiet footfalls halted above him: all three guards, by the sound. Their lights flashed yellow over the brook. Sano held his breath, fearful that they would see its thin vapor rising from within the cave of roots. Then someone said, "I think he came this way."

  "No," said the voice that had called the housekeeper a stupid hen. "He'd have jumped the wall."

  The first voice: "We'll keep looking until we're sure. The young master's orders-no trespassers."

  Their voices grew fainter as they moved off. Sano crept from his hiding place and peered over the incline. He saw the lights bobbing through the trees, one toward the front wall, the other deeper into the woods. He relaxed, safe for the moment, although he faced another problem. The guards' presence made his familiar escape route too risky. He had to find another way out, but he didn't know how far it was to the rear wall, if he could find his way to it through the woods, or where other guards might be stationed.

  An idea came to him. With these three men out chasing him, the house was less heavily guarded. And they would expect him to run away from it, not toward it. He could pass under the buildings and head for th
e wall on the far side of the gate.

  Sano began a slow advance on the house. He felt each step of the way with his hands and feet so he wouldn't make any noise. Finally he reached the edge of the clearing. Lying there, he scanned the house.

  The front-door guard remained at his post, gazing after his companions. Another guard was patrolling the side of the villa. Sano watched the man complete two rounds of inspection to learn the pattern. Walk to front of house, pause, look around. Turn. Walk along side of house, all the way past covered corridor to pavilion, while scrutinizing woods. Turn, repeat. Sano waited until the guard had almost reached the turnaround point at the pavilion. Then he hurried across the open space in a crouching run and dived under the house.

  He traversed the side house and its covered corridor. He'd reached the shinden when he heard muffled voices and creaking wood overhead. Lord Niu and his guests. Crawling to the shinden`s rear corner, Sano poked his head out from under the house. He saw no one on the back veranda or in the garden. Those guards must be the ones now searching the woods for him. He eased the rest of his body free. The voices grew louder, carrying through the flimsy paper panes between the lattice bars. The men sounded agitated, all talking at once, their words unintelligible. Tense in anticipation of more flying arrows, Sano knew he should go before the guards came. He reminded himself that he had the sandal and the rope and O-hisa's testimony. What more could he expect?

  Instead of running, Sano drew his dagger. He'd come too far and risked too much to leave without learning all he could. Emboldened by the noise in the house, he cut a hole in the window. Cautiously he put his eye to it.

  Oil lamps and charcoal braziers filled the vast room with an eerie, flickering light and a smoky haze. In the center, twenty young men sat in a semicircle, arguing, oblivious to anything outside. Sano recognized some of them as men Lord Niu had met at the swordmaker's shop and the martial arts academy. So Lord Niu's movements hadn't been as aimless as they'd seemed. He'd arranged the "chance" encounters to summon the men to this meeting. Now they faced him as he knelt upon a platform, a painted screen at his back. An uneasy quiet, punctuated by throat clearings, fell over the group, as if they feared his response.

  Although the remains of a meal lay on trays scattered among the men, Sano found the scene more suggestive of a haphazard picnic than of a banquet. Their serious expressions and the almost palpable tension in the room told him this was no ordinary social occasion. Also, the men were armed, as they normally wouldn't be in a private house. Sano pursed his lips in surprise when he recognized the crests on their kimonos: those of the Maeda, Date, and Hosokawa families among them. Lord Niu had assembled representatives from every major daimyo clan except for the Tokugawas.

  The Maeda man spoke. "I think the plan is too risky," he said. "It won't work. I propose we reconsider the alternatives."

  Immediately the others joined their voices again in furious dissent.

  "He's right!"

  "No! It will work!"

  "There's no time to lose, we have to act!"

  "I don't like it, either."

  "That's enough." Lord Niu, who had watched with a thin smile as his companions argued, now silenced them with one peremptory command.

  They turned to him, faces reflecting various degrees of fear, respect, and admiration. Sano could understand how Lord Niu inspired such emotions. The daimyo's son fairly shimmered with a passion that lit his eyes and made his small body seem larger. Even his skin, flushed perhaps by his recent sexual release, suggested an inner fire that drew the men to its warmth. For what scheme had he recruited them? Sano wondered whether it had any bearing on the murders, or if he was risking his life needlessly by eavesdropping.

  "There will be no more discussion of the plan," Lord Niu said, disappointing Sano. He stood, a slight jerkiness of movement the only sign of his deformity. "But in case you have forgotten, let me remind you why our action is necessary, and what we stand to gain from it."

  His voice rose in both pitch and volume; he dominated the room, holding the other men motionless as he paced the platform. "Are we not sick unto death of the repression and humiliation that our oppressors have perpetrated upon us? Have our fathers and grandfathers not been stripped of their ancestral fiefs and moved to lesser ones at the ends of the earth? Have they not suffered the indignities of alternate attendance in Edo and imprisonment on their estates? Are they not unable to come and go freely?"

  An angry rumble passed through the men. Backs straightened; fists clenched.

  "Must we continue to let the Tokugawas drain our wealth away by forcing us to subsidize the maintenance of their castles, their roads, their waterworks?" Lord Niu shouted, eyes blazing. "Why should we finance the government while the shogun wastes his own money on his harem of boy actors and peasants? Why should we let him dictate how we should furnish our homes, and even how we should dress? Should we endure his spying upon us? Or the abominable harassment by his inspectors when we travel on the Tokaido?"

  The rumble became a roar. "We won't stand for it any longer!" someone shouted. Other men took up the cry, quieting only when Lord Niu raised his voice over theirs.

  "Tokugawa Tsunayoshi is a weak fool who lets his army and his chamberlain, the despicable Yanagisawa, run the government while he sports with the wives and daughters of his ministers. And with his enforced peace, he would drag us down to his own level of moral depravity. Do we let him deprive us of our rightful occupation-that of serving our honor by making war?"

  "No! No! Down with the Tokugawas!"

  Sano had to choke back a gasp of surprise. He found himself trembling with excitement. The meeting's isolated setting, the secretive arrival of the participants, and Lord Niu's incendiary speech could mean only one thing. The risky plan constituted a plot against the Tokugawa government. Treason. For which Lord Niu, if caught, would be executed and disgraced more certainly than if convicted for the murder of a samurai child. And for which his family would share his punishment. Now Sano wondered whether Yukiko had died not because she'd witnessed the murder, but because she'd discovered the plot. And what about Noriyoshi? Had he learned of it too?

  "Do we let Tsunayoshi rob us of our samurai heritage and values as well, by turning us into simpering bureaucrats who protect dogs, or vulgar oafs who brawl in the streets for want of anything better to do?" Lord Niu asked.

  "No!" all twenty voices shouted in unison.

  "Then we must act without delay. We must fight as we were born to do. We will restore to our names the honor and glory that has been denied them for too long!"

  Now that he'd recovered from his initial shock, Sano sensed an underlying false note in Lord Niu's performance. His pacing, his hand gestures, and the anger in his voice and expression seemed overly theatrical. Lord Niu was playing to his audience as an actor would, exploiting their legitimate anger toward the Tokugawas. Did he really care about the shogun's mistreatment of his or the other daimyo clans?

  But the men responded with great enthusiasm to his theatrics. "Yes! Yes!" The floor shuddered as they leaped to their feet. Metal rasped as they unsheathed their swords and held them high.

  Lord Niu reached behind the painted screen. He held two objects high: an open scroll half covered with characters, and a writing brush. "Then it is time to pledge our oath," he announced.

  Kneeling, he laid the scroll and brush on the platform. He drew his dagger. A hush fell over the room as he gashed his palm. Dipping the brush into his blood, he wrote the characters of his name on the scroll below the text. His face betrayed no sign of the pain he must have felt, but some of the other young men winced. One by one, they mounted the platform, cut their palms, added their signatures to the scroll, and returned to their places.

  Sano's own palms tingled as he watched. These men, although foolhardy, were serious. A blood oath was a solemn one. He would have given anything to know what the text on the scroll said.

  When they finished, Lord Niu stood. "A poem to commemorate this occasion," h
e announced, a sly smile lifting the corner of his mouth. Gesturing with the rolled scroll, he recited:

  "The sun sets over the plain-"

  Good luck as the New Year approaches."

  The poem was not familiar to Sano, nor did it seem a very good one. And its significance escaped him. But the conspirators greeted it with wild cheers and laughter that broke the tension which had accompanied their oath. Then Lord Niu began shouting more epithets against the Tokugawas, inciting his men to greater fury. The house thundered with their shouts.

  "Soon we will show our fathers that we are true samurai!" Lord Niu cried. "We will make them proud to call us their sons!"