The Incense Game

36

Reiko listened to the floor in the old nurse’s house groan under stealthy footsteps. Uneasy, she rose and backed toward the wall, away from the passage that led further into the house’s interior. “There’s someone in the house,” she whispered.

“Nephew, is that you?” Kasane called.

Six samurai marched into the room. The air filled with the raw, animal odor of their horses, the warmth of their bodies. Reiko put her hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp. Were these r o nin bandits, come to loot the village? They didn’t notice her; she was outside their line of sight. They loomed over Kasane, who blinked in surprise.

Kasane smiled a toothless, uncertain smile. “Young master?”

Reiko was stunned. The man Kasane had addressed was Minister Ogyu. Reiko recognized the short, pudgy figure and smooth face she’d glimpsed at the Confucian academy. His jaws were clenched, as if with strong emotion he was trying to contain.

“I’d know you anywhere, but dear me, how long it’s been since I last saw you.” Kasane’s voice quavered with guilt because she had just betrayed him. “What brings you here?”

His five comrades waited silently. They had the hard, brutish look of bodyguards. Reiko heard Ogyu’s breath hiss in and out through his teeth. Alarm filled her as she realized what he was working up the courage to do.

He drew his sword with the clumsiness of someone unaccustomed to handling weapons. Reiko’s prediction, fabricated to convince Kasane to reveal his secret, had come true. He’d come to silence the other woman who knew his secret.

He lashed at Kasane. Reiko screamed, “No!” and lunged to restrain him. She was too late. His blade sliced Kasane across the throat.

The old nurse gazed blankly up at him. The gash in her neck splattered Reiko, Minister Ogyu, and the walls. Her mouth overflowed with blood. She crumpled into a heap of bones.

Reiko fell back, horrified by the sudden violence and her failure to save Kasane. Minister Ogyu groaned; his throat muscles jerked. He turned to Reiko. His full lips were white, his complexion greenish. He looked as shocked to see her as she’d been to see him. He frowned, trying to place her. Recognition filled his eyes with dismay.

“Chamberlain Sano’s wife.” His voice was higher than Reiko remembered. “You came to see my wife. You eavesdropped on us. That’s how you found out about Kasane.”

Reiko backed toward the door. Minister Ogyu advanced on her; his men blocked her way. His hand grasped the blood-smeared sword. “What did she tell you?” he asked.

“Nothing.” Reiko feigned innocence. He’d already killed four women; he wouldn’t hesitate to kill her. She could easily defeat him in a battle, but not his men. Terrified because it wasn’t only she who was trapped, but also the child she carried, she screamed to her guards, “Help! Help!”

“Shut up!” Minister Ogyu ordered. His voice was so shrill, and his face so lacking virility, that Reiko couldn’t believe she’d ever thought him a man. “You’re lying.”

“No.” She heard her guards muttering outside and their footsteps hurrying. “Kasane refused to tell me anything.”

The footsteps arrived at the front door, then clattered in the entryway. Minister Ogyu’s five men turned in that direction and drew their swords.

“Look out!” Reiko shouted to her guards. “They’re going to attack you!”

Minister Ogyu swatted her face. The blow landed hard against Reiko’s jaw. As she staggered, her four guards burst in, their swords drawn. Minister Ogyu’s men moved with such speed and power that their blades whistled like the wind. Reiko’s guards parried frantically. Lieutenant Tanuma blocked a strike that broke his blade in two. As he groped for his short sword, one of Minister Ogyu’s men ran his blade through the lacings between the armor plates of Tanuma’s tunic. Tanuma shrieked, fell, and lay still.

Although she knew she shouldn’t engage in combat while she was pregnant, Reiko couldn’t let her loyal guardians die while she stood idle. She drew the dagger strapped to her arm under her sleeve. The battle filled the room like a caged tornado. Men sprang, pivoted, and swung. Their blades carved the air. They collided and slammed against the walls; they trampled Kasane’s corpse. Reiko lashed at Minister Ogyu’s guards. Her dagger glanced off armor. Through the storm of whirring blades and hurtling figures, she saw Ogyu pressed flat against the wall, his eyes squeezed shut, his lips moving in prayer.

Reiko was filled with contempt for him. Being a woman was no excuse for cowardice!

One of Minister Ogyu’s men kicked Reiko’s hip, as if she were a puppy he wanted out of the way. She fell on her hands and knees. Blades whistled over her. Crawling on tatami slick with blood, she slashed at the men’s legs. Someone stomped on her hand until she let go of her dagger. He seized her waist and lifted her. As she struggled, he twisted her arms and pinned them behind her back. Suddenly the battle was over.

Seven men lay motionless on the floor. Reiko was aghast to see that all four of her guards, and only three of Minister Ogyu’s, were dead. The man who held her spoke to Minister Ogyu, who still stood against the wall. “What should I do with her?”

Panic skewered through Reiko. Her womb tightened as if to protect the child inside. “Let me go!” The man wrenched her arms harder. Pain choked her voice as she said, “Please!”

Minister Ogyu opened glassy eyes. When he saw all the corpses, he vomited.

“Should I kill her?” the man asked.

His muscles were like iron. Reiko couldn’t break his hold on her. She said, “If you let me go, I won’t tell anyone what happened.”

“Don’t believe her,” the other man said to Minister Ogyu, who was wiping his mouth. “She’ll run straight to her husband. He’ll come after us with his troops and kill us.”

“Not if I kill her first.” The man holding Reiko tightened his grip.

Minister Ogyu raised a trembling hand. It was small, the fingers delicate-obviously a woman’s, now that Reiko knew the truth about him. “Be quiet.” His voice was reedy; he cleared his throat, then found its masculine register. “Let me think.”

“What’s there to think about? If we want to live, she has to die.”

“We can’t kill her,” Minister Ogyu said. “If she’s murdered, her husband will know I’m responsible.”

“He won’t. She’ll disappear. We’ll hide her body.”

“No.” Regaining command, Minister Ogyu spoke sharply. “She probably told Chamberlain Sano that she was going to visit my old nursemaid. If she disappears, this is the first place he’ll look. When he comes here and finds this-” Gesturing around the room, he retched. “He’ll guess what happened.”

“All right, then what should we do?” Reiko’s captor demanded.

Minister Ogyu’s glassy eyes darted. Reiko’s mind raced as she tried to think of a way to save herself and her baby. She forced her muscles to relax.

“Take everything off them that could identify them,” Minister Ogyu said, pointing to Reiko’s dead guards. “Destroy their faces.”

“Why not just burn down the house?” asked the other man. He had jagged teeth, probably broken in fights, that gave him a savage look.

“Because that would bring out the villagers, you idiot,” Reiko’s captor said. “Even if they don’t see us before we can run away, they might put out the fire and discover the bodies before they can burn up.” His grip on Reiko loosened. She yanked one arm free, but his hand locked tight around the other.

“Now who’s the idiot?” Jagged Teeth said. “You almost let her get away.” Walking among Reiko’s guards, he relieved them of their swords, which bore their family crests.

Reiko’s captor held his sword against her throat. His free hand held both her wrists. Her breath caught. The skin on her neck contracted against the cold, blood-wet blade.

Jagged Teeth went to work on the guards’ faces. Reiko averted her gaze. She told herself that the men couldn’t feel the pain.

“What about her?” Reiko’s captor asked.

“Find some rope, and a box big enough to hold her,” Minister Ogyu told Jagged Teeth. “We’re taking her with us.”

Reiko’s terror crystallized like ice within her. He’d decided to kill her in spite of his reluctance. He would dump her in a river or bury her in the woods. The box would be her coffin, and her child’s.

“This will do.” Jagged Teeth opened a wicker trunk and emptied firewood out of it.

“Listen to me.” Reiko strained to speak as the chill from the blade paralyzed her throat muscles. “Your master doesn’t deserve your help. He’s been making fools of you.”

“What are you talking about?” Her captor’s fingers tightened cruelly around her wrists.

Reiko gasped in pain. “He’s tricked you into thinking he’s a man. But he’s not. He’s female. That’s why he killed his nursemaid. She knew. He was afraid she would tell.”

A beat of silence passed as her captor and Jagged Teeth exchanged surprised glances. Minister Ogyu stared at Reiko with naked horror, as blatant as a confession. But his men burst out laughing.

“It’s true!” Reiko cried. “Have you ever seen him without his clothes? Take them off and look!”

“Some people will say anything to save their necks,” Jagged Teeth said.

“Tie her up.” Smiling faintly, Minister Ogyu slicked sweat from his forehead with the back of his dainty hand.

Jagged Teeth found a coil of rope. While he bound her wrists and ankles, Reiko fought desperately, but the other guard held her down. He was young, with hard eyes and a falsely winsome smile. She screamed until the men tied a kerchief around her mouth as a gag. They forced her knees up to her chest and wrapped rope around her curled body. They lifted her and dumped her into the trunk. Minister Ogyu stood over her as she keened and strained against her bonds. His face was drained of his relief that his men hadn’t believed her, and crazed with desperation. Reiko agonized because her gamble had backfired. If he’d ever considered sparing her life before, he wouldn’t again. He knew that she knew his secret.

“Where are we taking her?” Jagged Teeth asked. “To Saru-waka-cho?”

“Yes.” Minister Ogyu closed the lid of the trunk.