Shinjū

Chapter 25

The world receded from Sano’s consciousness as he struggled to comprehend his terrible discovery. The dogs barked and growled on the bank of the canal; ravens shrieked overhead as they circled the kill. These sounds merely brushed against the surface of his mind. Who had killed O-hisa, and why?

The guilt and self-hatred Sano had felt after Tsunehiko’s murder returned in full force. O-hisa had died because of him. Now he had another death on his hands, this one worse because he’d known the risks. But what was she doing here? She couldn’t have been coming to see him; he hadn’t told her where he lived. Sano quickly scanned the surrounding area. There was very little blood on the ground beside the body, and no sign of her severed hands or legs, or her clothing. The fences shielded the canal from view of the houses, but surely someone would have heard screams and rushed to see the murder taking place. They would have summoned the police, if not in time to stop the murder, then at at least to remove the corpse afterward. So she’d been killed elsewhere. But then why had her body been dumped here, not much more than a hundred paces from his home?

Footsteps clattered across the wooden bridge above and behind Sano. He turned. Realization struck him in a wave of chilling sickness when he saw the three men hurrying toward him: a doshin accompanied by two assistants, one carrying a coiled rope, both waving barbed staves. He understood now why Lord Niu had left O-hisa here for him to find.

The doshin reached the end of the bridge. A heavy, muscular man, he clambered awkwardly down the bank of the canal. “Murderer!” he shouted. “For this you will die like a common criminal, Sano Ichirō. We’ll have your head on a pike beside the river by next dawn!”

It was a setup. Lord Niu, not satisfied with seeing him relieved of his position as yoriki, intended to stop his investigation by framing him for O-hisa’s murder. No matter that there was no blood on his sword, no witness to his supposed crime, and no reason for him to kill her. The Nius’ wealth and influence had already purchased his fate. Magistrate Ogyu would seal it. Although a samurai wouldn’t normally be treated like a criminal for killing a peasant, the hideous mutilation of O-hisa’s body made her otherwise unimportant murder an atrocity, a punishable offense. Not even his rank would save him from execution. Lord Niu need never worry about his interference again.

This awareness hit Sano in a flash of searing, inarticulate comprehension. While he stood immobilized by shock and horror, the doshin’s assistants slid down the slope ahead of their master. Sano knew that whatever he did, he couldn’t let them catch him. In Edo Jail, he, like Raiden and countless others, would eventually confess under torture. His only hope of survival lay in remaining free long enough to prove that he hadn’t killed O-hisa, and that Lord Niu was both murderer and traitor.

“Come along with us easy, now,” the doshin called as he lumbered and panted behind his men. “No use fighting. There’re three of us and only one of you. Accept your destiny like a true samurai.”

The assistants ran toward Sano. One began to uncoil the rope. The other raised his staff. Sano backed away as he cast about wildly for a way to escape. Simply running-the obvious, cowardly solution-would do him no good. He knew his home terrain. Just a few steps behind him, the canal’s banks grew steeper, almost vertical. Surfaced with smooth stone, they offered no footholds. He’d tried to climb them often enough in his youth, but had always failed and fallen into the water. The water itself was shallow at this time of year, no more than waist high, but with a muddy bottom that would grasp and hold his feet. And there was no use running upward. They would catch him before he could scale those high fences at the crest of the bank. Trapped, he did the only thing he could: He drew his sword.

Perhaps taking his initial hesitation as a sign that he didn’t mean to fight, the nearest assistant rushed Sano, body wide open to attack. Too late he saw the sword; too late he skidded to a stop and lowered his staff to protect himself.

Sano’s blade cut him diagonally from neck to waist. He screamed and sank to the ground, hands clutching the torn front of his kimono, which immediately darkened with blood.

The other men crashed into him. They fell back, uttering yells of outraged surprise. Before they could recover and set upon him with their weapons, Sano fled. As he swerved around them, he recognized the doshin whose arson investigation he’d commandeered, the day he’d heard of the shinjū. How long ago it seemed! Seeing the lust for revenge in the small, cruel eyes, he charged down the shoreline and up the steep bank toward the bridge. He wished he could look back to make sure that the man he’d cut was only superficially wounded, as he’d intended, and not dead. Had he misjudged the pressure of his stroke? But the others were already hot in pursuit.

“Stop! I order you to stop!” the doshin yelled.

His unhurt assistant, younger and quicker, bounded up behind Sano. Blows landed on Sano’s shoulders. He gasped as the barbed staff bit his flesh, and kept running. He didn’t want to fight and kill the man, but he refused to die for a crime he hadn’t committed. The added trauma of his arrest, conviction, and execution would hasten his father’s death. Nor could he let Noriyoshi’s, Yukiko’s,

Tsunehiko’s, and O-hisa’s murders go unavenged. And now he had another, even more critical reason to live. He was the only person who believed that Lord Niu meant to assassinate the shogun, and hence the only person capable of thwarting him.

His feet hit the bridge. There onlookers greeted him with shrieks of terror.

“It’s Sano Shutarō’s son!”

“What’s he done?”

“Killed someone, it looks like.”

That the people he’d known all his life should think him a murderer filled Sano’s heart with shame. He wanted to stop and explain that he’d been framed, but he couldn’t. He must run for his life, or forever lose the chance to prove his innocence.

“Someone stop him!” the assistant shouted, panting as he landed another blow to Sano’s shoulder.

The doshin, falling far behind now, shouted, “You are a dead man, Sano Ichirō! You can’t run forever!”

Sano waved his bloody sword. The crowd scattered. People shrank back against the bridge’s railings to get out of his way. One man jumped over the rail and landed in the canal with a splash. Sano sped across the bridge. Desperation drove his legs to pump faster. The staff no longer battered him as he pulled ahead of his pursuers. But when he reached the gate, he saw trouble waiting for him: the two guards.

“That man is a murderer,” the assistant yelled to them. “Catch him!”

Sano had hardly cleared the gate when the guards joined in the chase. His heart was pounding furiously now; his chest heaved with each frantic breath. He heard more shouts. Heard swords rasp free of their scabbards, and the stamp of four instead of two pairs of running feet behind him. As he plunged into the maze of narrow streets, a cramp shot across his left side. He could run no faster. A quick glance backward told him that the men were gaining on him. His breath came in sobs now. Though he forced himself to keep moving, he tasted defeat. His skin tingled in anticipation of a sword’s swishing descent and the mortal agony as it gashed his back.

Then he spotted his salvation: one of his neighbors, an elderly samurai mounted on a brown horse, ambling toward him.

“I’m sorry, Wada-san,” he cried. “Please forgive me, but I must borrow your horse.”

The old man gave a startled grunt as Sano dragged him off his mount.

“I promise I’ll return it,” Sano shouted as he mounted the horse and slapped the reins. Would that he lived long enough!

Urging the horse to a gallop, he risked a backward glance. He saw the men still following, but falling rapidly behind him. The doshin waved his jitte, shouted something, then stopped, a hand pressed to his middle.

Triumph pulsed through Sano’s veins. He was free! For how long, though, he didn’t know. The doshin would alert his comrades across the city; soon they and their men would join the hunt for the murderer Sano Ichirō. And exactly how he would use his temporary freedom, he didn’t know either.

The alley was dim, deserted, and forbidding. On either side, rows of ramshackle buildings leaned inward, blocking much of the sky to form a short tunnel of twilight. Three public privies sent forth a sharp stench and leaked dirty water onto the ground. But Sano welcomed the alley as a haven from the streets of this poor section of Nihonbashi, where the Setsubun festivities were rapidly escalating in fervor. After a quick look behind him to make sure no one was following, he guided Wada-san’s horse into it. Seeing two adjacent doorways screened with bamboo lattices, he dismounted and squeezed both himself and the horse into the small space between them so that no one entering the alley from either end would see them. Then he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, trying to rest. To think.

His wild, directionless gallop through Edo had consumed the remainder of the afternoon. He’d had no time to think past his immediate aim of putting as much distance as possible between himself and the canal where he’d found O-hisa’s body. He had no plan except to lose himself in the crowds and avoid the police. In this he’d succeeded, barely. The teeming Setsubun revelers offered plenty of cover, but he’d sensed a heightened watchfulness about the police he’d spotted. Unusually tolerant of the antics taking place around them, they’d scanned each face as if looking for someone.

For him. Already.

Sano passed a trembling hand over his face. He had to plan his next move now. He couldn’t afford to waste a moment of his precious freedom. But the noise from the street clamored at his aching head; desolation paralyzed his mind. The wounds on his shoulders throbbed, and blood plastered them to his clothing. Already the underlying muscles had swelled and stiffened; he couldn’t turn his head or move his arms without pain. Fear had solidified in him like an iron skeleton. His whole body sagged with fatigue, and he’d never felt more alone. Shivering in his cloak, he reflected with amazement upon the changes that a few hours had wrought in his life.

Before finding O-hisa’s body, he’d had a choice whether to continue pursuing Lord Niu. Now he had none. He couldn’t turn his back on the events of the past fourteen days and go home. The doshin would be waiting for him there, no doubt with a small army of reinforcements to help carry him off to jail or kill him on the spot. Compared to this reality, the past disgrace he’d brought upon his family seemed insignificant.

He couldn’t sink back into comfortable obscurity. As a fugitive, he would spend the rest of his days on the run while the whole country hunted him. Even if he’d possessed the cash to provision himself and Wada-san’s horse for a journey, he knew that a flight to the provinces was futile. By now Magistrate Ogyu would have dispatched messengers to the highway checkpoint guards and village headmen, warning them to be on the watch for him. His quest for vengeance had merged with the simpler, more powerful desire for survival.

From deep inside himself, Sano summoned what strength he had left, a small but brave force now reduced to the bare samurai steel his father’s training had given him. He had no choice but to prove his innocence, or die in the attempt. Otherwise, his life was over anyway. If he remained a fugitive, everyone and everything he cared about-his family and friends and his honor-would be lost to him forever. To flee for his own life and let Lord Niu assassinate the shogun would be to fail in his ultimate duty to the highest lord of the land. The greatest disgrace of all. Sano’s mouth twisted in a bitter smile. If getting help from the authorities had seemed difficult before, it was impossible now. Anyone he approached would have him arrested before he could finish one sentence.

The sound of footsteps jarred Sano out of his gloomy contemplation. He laid a steadying hand on the horse’s neck and peered around the lattice screen. To his relief, he saw coming toward him not a doshin, but a man dressed in a gaudy purple-and-gold cloak and a strange flat cap. Obviously drunk, he zigzagged down the alley to the privies. Sano saw that his cap wasn’t one at all, but a mask, pushed up on his head out of the way. Selecting the middle of the identical wooden sheds, the man stumbled inside.

The sight of the man’s Setsubun costume roused Sano to action. A disguise was absolutely essential to the plan beginning to take shape in his mind. Mounting his horse, he walked it over to the privies and waited.

The drunk staggered out of the privy. With two swipes, Sano plucked the mask off his head and tore the cloak from his shoulders.

“Hey, what-” The man spun around and fell on his buttocks.

Sano kicked the horse’s sides as he stuffed the cloak under his arm and fastened the mask over his own face. It was, he saw, an armored face shield that must have once belonged to a general or other high-ranking officer. Made of black metal, it had slits cut out for the eyes and mouth, and a bristly black horsehair mustache.

“Filthy samurai!” the drunk bawled at him, shaking a fist. “Think you can just take whatever you want!”

Now doubly a thief, Sano started to gallop away with his stolen goods. How ironic that in his crusade to catch a criminal, he’d become one himself! Then he turned back. Taking some coins from his pouch, he threw them at the drunk. They clinked and scattered across the ground.

“Have these as payment,” he called. He might die at any moment, and he didn’t want his last act to be one of thievery, no matter how necessary. Besides, there was no use hoarding money now. If he survived this night-if his plan succeeded-he could earn more somehow. If not, then what little cash he carried wouldn’t even pay for his funeral. Now he wished he’d thought to pay Wada-san for the horse that he might never return.

He swung the horse about and headed for the street. At the end of the alley he slowed to don the purple cloak printed with gold peonies. His long sword made an awkward bulge in it, and he hoped no one would notice and wonder why a samurai hid his weapons.

Out in the streets, the crowd swirled around him. Masked faces leered: dragons, monkeys, demons, tigers. Troupes of wandering musicians played drums, flutes, and clappers. A shower of pellets rained down on Sano as he passed a house where a group of women stood on the roof.

“Devils out! Fortune in!” they chanted, throwing roasted soybeans into the street for good luck.

Sano headed southwest out of Nihonbashi toward the daimyo district. With part of his attention, he watched for the doshin; with the rest, he concentrated on making his way without trampling anyone, and on searching the blocks of buildings for the one he wanted.

At the torū gate of a Shinto shrine located between two shops, he dismounted and secured his horse. He walked through the shrine’s precinct, where the neighborhood’s residents flocked around stalls that sold snacks and amazake, the sweet, gingery fermented New Year’s rice brew. The inner gates bore a long, looping rope of twisted rice straw, denoting the sacred space, strands of plaited white paper, and ferns. Outside the small, thatch-roofed shrine festooned with pine and bamboo and draped with white banners printed with the Tokugawa crest, he paused at the stone water basin to rinse his lips. He dropped a coin into the offering box, pulled the rope to sound the gong, and clapped his hands twice in prayer. Then, after leaving his shoes beside others that stood outside the door, he went into the shrine.

As he looked for the priest, he saw a family-father, mother, and two children-standing before the altar. The mother was unwrapping a package of cakes to leave as an offering to the stone image of the harvest goddess Inari.

“We do this so that she will bless us with good luck in the New Year,” the father explained to the children.

With his own chances for good fortune almost nonexistent, Sano felt very remote from them, as if an invisible screen separated him from the everyday world.

“Come, why so sad? Holidays are for celebrating.”

Sano turned to see the priest standing beside him, an old man with a face like a dried apple. He wore a cylindrical black hat on his bald head, and a deep purple robe over his white kimono. Wrinkles creased the skin around his eyes and mouth when he smiled.

“Are you troubled?” he asked. His expression turned serious with compassion. “Is there some way in which I can help you?”

No one could help him. He was alone in his trouble. But he’d come to ask the priest for a small service that might help those who cared about him.

“Yes,” he said. “Might I have a brush, some ink, and a piece of paper? And a place where I can sit and write?”

If the priest thought this request odd, or thought it strange that Sano didn’t remove his mask, he gave no sign. He merely motioned for Sano to follow him outside, to a shed at the rear of the shrine precinct. There, in a small room that served as storeroom, kitchen, and office, he arranged writing materials on a desk. He nodded to Sano and withdrew.

Sano took off his mask so that he could see in the dim shed. He ground the ink, mixed it with water, and dipped his brush.

Setsubun, Genroku 1. Otōsan and Okōsan,

he wrote, regretting that his need for haste allowed him no time for the formal expressions of respect with which he would normally begin a letter to his parents.

By the time you get this letter, I will probably be dead. That being the case, I wish now to give you my most solemn oath that I did not kill the woman who was found by the canal today, no matter what anyone would have you believe.

Rather than passively accept my fate and the disgrace that my conviction and execution would bring upon our family, I must prove my innocence and bring the real killer to justice. I intend to do so by first stealing, then delivering into the hands of the authorities a certain scroll now in the possession of Lord Niu Masahito. It proves that he is guilty of treason and supports my contention that he killed four people and made me a fugitive from the law in order to conceal his plot to assassinate the shogun.

By this action may I also fulfill my duty to our highest lord by saving him from death at the hands of Lord Niu and his fellow conspirators.

I must leave you now, knowing that I might never return.

Please forgive me for all the suffering I have brought upon you. With eternal gratitude, devotion, and respect,

Ichirō

Sano read over his ill-composed message, hoping that it would give his parents some measure of comfort, or at least explain his actions to them. He blotted the ink dry, folded and sealed the letter. He wrote his parents’ full names and the directions to their house on it. Then he donned his mask and went outside, where he found the priest waiting.

“Will you please see that this message is delivered today?” he asked. He handed it to the priest, along with the rest of his money. “It’s very important.”

The priest frowned as he nodded and took the letter, though not out of offense at a stranger’s imposition. He seemed to have accepted the gravity of Sano’s predicament without question, as his next words proved:

“Is there no turning back from this dangerous course of action upon which you have decided?”

Sano looked away from the priest, toward the shrine’s outer precinct, where a troupe of amateur actors had set up a makeshift stage. The hero, dressed as a samurai, was singing a lament about a son killed in battle. An appreciative audience cheered his anguished cries and posturings.

“No,” Sano said. His destiny was laid out for him, just as that of the characters in the play. “I cannot turn back.”