The Ronin’s Mistress

23

The judges debated far into the night. They included Inspector General Nakae and Lord Nabeshima, whom Magistrate Ueda had allowed to rejoin the court. Their chamber was thick with smoke from their tobacco pipes. They shook their fists and pounded on the floor while they argued loudly, until Magistrate Ueda said, “Let’s take another vote.” His eyes were bleary from the smoke; his head ached. “All in favor of pardoning the forty-seven ronin, raise your hands.”

Seven hands went up.

“All in favor of condemning?”

The other seven judges raised their hands.

“This is the third time we’ve come out divided half and half,” Nakae said.

“We’re getting nowhere,” Colonel Hitomi said crossly.

“We have to keep at it until we’re all on the same side,” Superintendent Ogiwara said.

Lord Nabeshima combined a laugh with a snort. “I’m not changing my mind.” He folded his arms and glared at the seven judges who opposed him. “Are you?”

“Not I,” they chorused.

Inspector General Nakae’s eyes gleamed with cunning. He said to Superintendent Ogiwara, “The next time I audit your department, I might find a serious discrepancy in the account books.”

“What?” Superintendent Ogiwara said, puzzled, fearful, and insulted. “There are no discrepancies.”

“I’m sure I can find something.” Nakae paused, letting the threat of reprimands, fines, demotion, and dismissal hang in the air. “Unless you change your vote.”

Superintendent Ogiwara gasped. “That’s blackmail!”

The judges on his side protested. Magistrate Ueda wasn’t shocked because Nakae would stoop to such a low tactic, but because Nakae had done it so openly. Nakae was clearly too impatient to wait until he could get each opposing judge alone and negotiate a private deal.

“I can play that game.” Minister Motoori said to Lord Nabeshima, “The shogun wants to build new temples. Change your vote, or I’ll advise him that you should provide the money.”

“You wouldn’t!” Lord Nabeshima looked aghast at the thought of the fortune that the new temples would cost him. He glared at his friend Nakae. “See what you’ve started!”

“Rule number seven,” Magistrate Ueda said. “No blackmail and no deals. Anyone who breaks it will spend ten days in Edo Jail.”

Inspector General Nakae shook his head in angry disgust. “So you don’t like my solution to our problem. What’s yours?”

Magistrate Ueda said the only thing he could. “We hope for new evidence, and in the meantime, we continue debating.” He looked at the men around him. Their faces were puffy with weariness. “We’ve all had enough for one day. The court is adjourned until tomorrow.”

* * *

Temple bells tolled the hour of the boar as Magistrate Ueda traveled home. His portly figure swayed in the saddle while he rode through the Hibiya administrative district, just south of Edo Castle, where he lived in a mansion attached to the Court of Justice. One bodyguard rode in front of him, one behind. The district was dimly lit by lanterns burning in a few of the houses crouched behind earthen walls. The streets were empty. The horses’ hooves crunching on icy snow punctuated the lonely sound of dogs howling.

Magistrate Ueda breathed vigorously, letting the wintry night air cleanse his system of tobacco smoke and bad will. How fed up he was with that stubborn pack of mules! But he must guide the court to a just verdict. He worried about Sano, Reiko, and their children. Whichever way the case turned out, they could suffer.

He was so deep in thought, and his bodyguards so sleepy, that they didn’t notice the man who’d followed them from Edo Castle. The man sped along in the shadows along the walls, the noise from the horses muffling his footsteps. Dressed in black, a hood pulled over his head, he moved with sinister stealth.

Magistrate Ueda and his guards rode down a path that bordered a canal. Steep retaining walls descended to the water, which gleamed in the moonlight. Beyond the canal rose mansions; over it arched a wooden bridge. Magistrate Ueda and his guards rode in single file onto the bridge. He was halfway across when the guard behind him uttered a cry filled with surprise and pain. Startled, Magistrate Ueda reined his horse sideways. He saw the guard clutch his neck, then topple off his mount.

“Inaba-san!” Magistrate Ueda called. “What-?”

Another cry shrilled. Magistrate Ueda looked at the guard ahead of him. The guard flailed his arms, then slumped. An arrow protruded from his back. His body listed. He dangled from one stirrup as his horse reared and galloped away.

Panic filled Magistrate Ueda: This was an ambush, and he was the next target. But even while he looked around for the archer, while he feared for his own life, he climbed off his horse and hurried to his fallen guard. Inaba was an old friend whom he must try to save. Then he saw the arrow that had pierced Inaba’s throat, the great spill of blood on the bridge, and Inaba’s eyes blankly reflecting the moonlight.

An arrow whizzed past Magistrate Ueda and struck the bridge’s railing. He looked in the direction from which the arrow had come. On the path along the canal, the shadowy figure of the archer took aim to shoot again.

Magistrate Ueda ran. He cleared the bridge and fled into an alley between two estates while footsteps thudded behind him. It was so dark that he had to grope his way, stumbling on snow piles. The archer wouldn’t be able to get a good shot, he hoped. He was only a few blocks from his mansion; he would be safe soon. But he was old, fat, and out of shape. He panted and staggered as he neared the end of the alley. The footsteps pounded louder, closer.

A hand grabbed his shoulder. Crying out, he turned and saw his pursuer’s black-clothed figure. The dim light from the end of the alley gleamed in the man’s eyes. The man raised an object. Magistrate Ueda saw the gloved hand and the club studded with shiny iron spikes. He fumbled for the sword at his waist, but before he could draw it, the club came swinging down.

A hard blow landed against his forehead. Pain burst in his skull. His vision fragmented into brilliant shards. He fell through space. An instant later he crashed onto the ground. He tried to call for help, but more blows smote him. His last thought was, Who wants me dead?

* * *

While she slept that night, a part of Reiko remained alert in case her children should cry or danger should threaten her family. The moment she heard Hirata’s voice say, “Excuse me, Sano-san, Lady Reiko,” she was instantly awake.

“What is it?” Reiko threw off the heavy quilts, shivered in her night robe, and squinted in the light from the lantern that Hirata held. Chiyo stood beside him, her expression grave.

“It’s your father,” Hirata said.

Sano groggily pushed himself upright. “Magistrate Ueda? What’s happened?”

“A messenger just came from his house,” Hirata said. “He’s been attacked.”

Reiko’s heart began to pound so hard that she felt as if a hammer were striking inside her body. She felt dizzy and faint. “Is he-?” She couldn’t bear to utter the word.

“He’s alive,” Chiyo said quickly.

Reiko felt a flood of relief that dried up as Hirata said, “But he’s seriously injured.”

“Who did it?” Sano said, as stricken as Reiko was. “How did it happen?”

“The messenger didn’t know the details,” Hirata answered.

Reiko flung herself out of bed, groping for her clothes. “I must go to him at once!”

Masahiro appeared at the door. “Can I go, too?”

Down the corridor, Akiko let out a wail. Reiko said, “No, Masahiro, I need you to take care of your sister.” She didn’t want him to see his grandfather hurt and be upset.

“I’ll stay with them,” Chiyo said.

Reiko managed a smile for Chiyo as she threw her kimono on over her night robe. “Thank you.” She spared a thought to hope that Okaru hadn’t made a permanent rift in their friendship.

* * *

The procession stormed out the gate of Edo Castle. Sano, Hirata, and Detectives Marume and Fukida rode at the front. Troops brought up the rear behind Reiko, who traveled on an oxcart. Reiko couldn’t have borne the slow pace of a palanquin. She sat on the edge of the bench behind the driver and the two lumbering oxen. She barely noticed the rattling and swaying of the cart or the cold penetrating the quilt bundled around her. She was frantic to get to her father, terrified that he would take a turn for the worse and she would arrive too late.

When the procession reached the Hibiya administrative district, Reiko unwrapped her quilt, jumped off the oxcart, and ran. The walls outside the mansions and the lights from inside streaked past her. Her breath puffed white vapor into the frigid darkness. She caught up with Sano and his men at her father’s mansion. A sentry opened the gate. Reiko rushed in; Sano and Hirata hurried after her. The low, half-timbered mansion where Reiko had grown up was lit with lanterns burning on the veranda and in the windows. Inside, Reiko ran down the corridors. Servants stood back to let her pass. She avoided their gazes for fear of seeing terrible news written there. Reaching her father’s chamber, she burst through the door and halted.

Magistrate Ueda lay in bed, covered up to his chin with a brown quilt. His head was wrapped in a white cloth bandage, his face so battered that Reiko barely recognized him. Reddish-purple bruises covered his eyes, which were swollen and shut. His nose and mouth were also swollen, with blood crusted around the nostrils and oozing from a cut on his lip. A doctor sat nearby, an old man dressed in the dark blue coat of the medical profession, with a chest full of medicines and instruments. He measured herbs into a cup of steaming water.

Reiko moaned in horror even while her legs buckled with relief that her father was alive. She fell on her knees at his bedside. “Father!”

Magistrate Ueda didn’t speak, open his eyes, or seem to hear her. His breath gurgled in and out of his mouth. Reiko looked anxiously at the doctor.

“He’s unconscious,” the doctor said. “That’s quite a severe injury to his head.”

The tears that Reiko had suppressed during the trip now streamed down her face. She reached under the quilt, found her father’s hand, and squeezed his fingers. They were cold, inert.

Sano and Hirata came in with the magistrate’s longtime chief retainer, an old samurai named Ikeda. He’d taught Reiko to ride a horse when she was young.

“Don’t cry yet, little one,” he said, kind but brisk. “Your father is too strong and stubborn to be killed so easily.”

Reiko felt braced up, the way she had when she’d fallen off her horse and Ikeda had lifted her back into the saddle. She dried her tears.

“Can you tell us what happened?” Sano asked, his face drawn with concern.

“The magistrate and his bodyguards were ambushed on their way home from Edo Castle.” Ikeda explained that the guards had been killed by arrows shot at them. “The magistrate must have tried to run away. He was beaten in an alley not far from here.”

“How did he get home?” Hirata asked.

“A doshin happened to be passing by on his rounds,” Ikeda said. “He found the magistrate and brought him home.”

“Thank the gods,” Reiko murmured, but she was aghast at the thought of the terror and pain her father had suffered. Rage at his attacker began to burn within her. “Who did this?”

“I don’t know. The magistrate was unconscious when the doshin found him, and he hasn’t come to yet.” Ikeda told Sano, “The doshin is still here. I figured you would want to talk to him, so I told him to stick around.”

“Good. I do.” Sano’s expression darkened with the same anger that enflamed Reiko. “Whoever it was, will pay.”

24

Sano and Hirata found the doshin in an empty chamber, fast asleep. Beside him lay his sword and his jitte. When Hirata shook him, he yelled and bolted upright; his hand scrabbled for the weapons.

“It’s all right, we’re friends,” Hirata said, then introduced Sano and himself.

The doshin was about Sano’s age; he had a weathered, genial face. “I remember you both from when you were in the police department. But I don’t suppose you remember me.”

“I do,” Hirata said. “You’re Nomura.”

“That’s right.” Nomura beamed, flattered.

“Thank you for rescuing my father-in-law,” Sano said.

“My pleasure,” Nomura said. “I’d like to help catch the bastard who did this.”

“Good,” Sano said. “Tell us what happened.”

“Well, I was making my rounds with my two assistants. We heard shouts, and we went to see what was going on. We came out on the path beside the canal, and a horse charged past us. It was dragging the rider. I sent my assistants to help him. Then I saw two other horses on the bridge, and a samurai lying there dead with an arrow in his neck. I figured that there’d been three men riding together and they’d been ambushed by thieves.”

That was a common enough crime in Edo, but thieves usually avoided the samurai quarters because of all the armed troops there. Sano had never heard of an ambush in the administrative district.

“But where was the other man?” Nomura asked himself. “Then I heard shouting, from an alley on the other side of the bridge. I ran over there. It was so dark, I could barely see. There was one man on the ground. Another man was beating him. I shouted, ‘Stop! Police!’ The man doing the beating ran away. The man on the ground was moaning. I figured he’d be all right by himself for a little while, so I chased after the other fellow.”

Nomura said regretfully, “I wish I hadn’t left him. I didn’t know he was Magistrate Ueda, and I didn’t know how bad he was hurt. When I came back, he was unconscious. I dragged him out of the alley, and that’s when I recognized him. My assistants caught the runaway horse. The rider was dead. We brought Magistrate Ueda home and they took the two dead men to Edo Morgue.” Shamefaced, Nomura added, “The attacker got away. I’m sorry.”

“I’m glad you were there,” Sano said. “If not for you, Magistrate Ueda might not have survived.”

“Did you get a good look at the attacker?” Hirata asked.

“No. It was too dark.”

Sano tamped down his disappointment and his rage toward the man who’d beaten his father-in-law so savagely. Giving in to emotion wouldn’t help him catch the culprit.

“Maybe I can track him,” Hirata said. “First, I need to see the crime scene.”

“I’ll show you.” Nomura stood.

“You go,” Sano told Hirata. “You’re better equipped to find clues at the scene than I am. And I have another line of inquiry that I want to pursue.”

* * *

Dawn began to lighten the sky when Hirata and the doshin arrived at the bridge. They found a street-cleaner at work with a bucket and a brush, scrubbing the blood off the bridge’s planks. Red-tinted snow and water slopped into the canal below.

“Hey! This is a crime scene!” Nomura said. “Stop!”

The street-cleaner halted, afraid he was in trouble. Hirata said, “It’s all right. Keep working.” The blood wasn’t the evidence he needed. He paced along the path, then the bridge, his eyes scanning the area, his other senses alert.

Nomura trailed him eagerly. “Are you using magic to find the criminal?”

“I’m looking for clues he left behind. It could be a trace of his aura.” Hirata explained what auras were and that he could detect them and use them to track people.

They paced together in silence. After a while Nomura said, “Are you getting anything?”

“I’m getting too much. So many people have passed by here. I can’t tell which aura belongs to the attacker. It would help if I could find something else he left.” Hirata spotted an arrow lying beside the street-cleaner’s bucket. “Hey! Did you find that here today?”

“Yes, master,” the street-cleaner said. “It was stuck in the railing.”

Hirata closed his fingers around the arrow’s shaft. He felt the faint aura of the man who had drawn the arrow in the bow and let it fly. The aura evoked a dull red color shot with flinty sparks. Hirata read a distinctive combination of weakness, brutality, and sullen resentment.

“What do you think?” Nomura asked hopefully.

“I’ll recognize him if I meet him,” Hirata said. “Show me where you chased him.”

They traveled through the administrative district, Hirata on horseback, Nomura on foot. Hirata didn’t sense the aura in the walled mansions or among the troops and officials emerging as the sky brightened. He and the doshin crossed into the Nihonbashi merchant quarter and joined the commoners who streamed through the winding lanes. They stopped at an intersection between three lanes that contained blacksmith shops.

“Here’s where I lost him,” Nomura said.

Inside the shops, forges roared, warming the air. Smoke billowed. Clanging noises echoed as the blacksmiths pounded red-hot metal into horseshoes, helmets, and armor plates. Hirata tuned out the noise and concentrated.

“Anything yet?” Nomura asked.

“No,” Hirata said. “He’s gone.”

“Maybe he lives around here.”

So did too many other people. Hirata prepared for a long search. Maybe the attacker would cross his path, but in a city of a million people, what were the chances of that happening?

* * *

Leaving Reiko at her father’s bedside, Sano rode back to Edo Castle and went straight to the chamber where the supreme court met. He found the thirteen judges already seated. They looked tired, ill-humored. Magistrate Ueda’s place was conspicuously vacant.

“What are you doing back this soon?” Inspector General Nakae said. “Isn’t it a little early for you to have more news to report?”

“We were going to continue discussing the evidence you brought us yesterday,” Superintendent Ogiwara said from the opposite row. “We’re just waiting for our chief.”

“He’s late,” Lord Nabeshima said disapprovingly.

“I do have news,” Sano said. “Magistrate Ueda was ambushed on his way home last night. His two bodyguards were killed. He was badly beaten, and he’s still unconscious.” Telling the story whipped up fresh anger inside Sano. He felt a new, visceral sense of identification with the forty-seven ronin. They had avenged their master. Sano must deliver Magistrate Ueda’s attacker to justice. “That’s why he’s not here.”

Stunned silence greeted Sano’s words. If the judges had already known about the attack, they did a good job pretending they hadn’t. Old Minister Motoori said, “I’m terribly sorry.”

The other judges echoed him. “Have you any idea who’s responsible?” Superintendent Ogiwara said.

“Not yet,” Sano said. “I’m beginning an investigation.”

“Maybe it was a robbery,” Lord Nabeshima said.

“I believe it was an assassination attempt,” Sano said.

“Oh, well, then, doesn’t Magistrate Ueda have quite a few enemies?” Inspector General Nakae said. “Thank you for bringing the news, but shouldn’t you be investigating them?”

“What makes you think that’s not what I’m doing?” Sano swept his gaze over the judges.

Although Inspector General Nakae and Lord Nabeshima retained their places in the row of Chamberlain Yanagisawa’s cronies, while Superintendent Ogiwara and Minister Motoori still sat with the opposition in Magistrate Ueda’s row, other judges had changed seats. The division now reflected the judges’ stances on the case instead of political allegiance, Sano deduced. There would have been seven on each side if Magistrate Ueda was here.

The judges frowned as they absorbed Sano’s implication. “You’re accusing us of trying to murder Magistrate Ueda?” Superintendent Ogiwara demanded.

“Not the judges who are on the same side as Magistrate Ueda.” Sano turned a hard gaze on the inspector general’s side. “This case has become a battle. How far would you go to win?”

Nakae sputtered, outraged. “You think we would try to kill a colleague in order to sway the court toward condemning the forty-seven ronin?”

“Did you?” Sano added, “You and Lord Nabeshima weren’t too happy with Magistrate Ueda when he had you removed from the court yesterday.”

“No, we didn’t! That’s ridiculous,” Nakae said. “Moreover, I’m sure we can provide alibis. My guards and I rode part of the way home with Magistrate Ueda last night. He was fine when we left him. We went straight home, and I stayed there until this morning.”

His friends hastened to say they’d been at home all night, too.

“You wouldn’t have needed to get your own hands dirty,” Sano said. “You have people to carry out your orders.”

Inspector General Nakae disdainfully waved away the notion. “Killing Magistrate Ueda would have taken away only one vote from my opponents. There would still be six other judges in favor of pardoning.”

“Magistrate Ueda wasn’t just one vote,” Sano said. “He was the chief judge. He made the rule that the decision had to be unanimous. With him gone, you could change the rule and decide by a majority vote. The verdict would go your way.”

“Your reasoning is offensive,” Lord Nabeshima snapped. “We don’t care enough about the verdict that we would stoop to murdering our colleague.”

“Don’t you?” Sano stared at Lord Nabeshima.

Lord Nabeshima’s gaze shifted first. Inspector General Nakae said, “What if you’re correct in thinking that someone was trying to influence the court’s verdict by eliminating one of the judges? We aren’t the only suspects. Other people have an interest in the outcome, too.”

“The whole city is in an uproar over it, in case you haven’t heard,” Lord Nabeshima said.

“Other people don’t know what’s going on inside the court and which way each judge is leaning,” Sano said. “Your proceedings are confidential.”

“Yes, any outsider who wanted to eliminate a judge would run the risk of picking the wrong one.” A dirty gleam kindled in Inspector General Nakae’s eyes. “But there’s one man who does know, even though he’s an outsider.”

His smile bared his rotten teeth at Sano. The other judges sat back, startled by the turn the conversation had taken.

“You accuse me of trying to manipulate the court’s decision by attacking my own father-in-law?” Sano was exasperated. But of course he did bear some blame for Magistrate Ueda’s injuries. He had nominated Magistrate Ueda to the court, had put him in harm’s way. Guilt spread a nauseous feeling through Sano. He turned his anger at himself on the judges. “That’s absurd and insulting!”

They gazed back at him with disapproval, Magistrate Ueda’s opponents and allies alike. Sano saw another bad consequence of the attack on the magistrate: He’d lost his only friend on the court, whom he’d counted on to help him protect his family’s interests. He said to Nakae, “You’re trying to divert suspicion onto-”

A new thought stopped Sano. He realized that Nakae had spoken the truth about one thing: There was an outsider who’d heard the judges’ confidential discussions, who’d guessed Magistrate Ueda’s position, who surely wanted a hand in the verdict, even though he’d kept quiet about where he stood on the issue of the forty-seven ronin. But it wasn’t Sano.

“What’s the matter?” Inspector General Nakae said. “Choking on your own words?”

“Thank you,” Sano said.

Surprise lifted Nakae’s sagging brow. “For what?”

“You just provided a new lead for my investigation.”