The Ronin’s Mistress

1701 April

During another etiquette lesson, Kira mocked Lord Asano so cruelly that Lord Asano broke down. Oishi took Lord Asano home, put him to bed, then returned to Edo Castle and accosted Kira. “Start behaving respectfully toward my master, or I will destroy you!”

“Before you take action against me, listen to a bit of advice: Don’t waste your loyalty on Lord Asano.” Kira smiled maliciously. “He’s having an affair with your wife.”

Oishi was furious. “You’re lying, you evil old crow.”

Kira shrugged daintily. “They’re meeting tomorrow afternoon, at the River Inn in Nihonbashi. Rent the room on the western end. There’s a crack in the wall. See for yourself.”

Oishi didn’t believe Kira. Lord Asano had never taken a woman who belonged to a friend. But Kira had planted a seed of suspicion in Oishi’s mind. The next day Oishi went to the inn, rented the room, and waited, peering out the window.

Ukihashi and Lord Asano arrived separately. Each sneaked into the room next door. Oishi’s heart dropped. Kira was right: His master and his wife were deceiving him. He spied on them through the crack while they made love. Consumed by jealousy, rage, and hurt, he didn’t think to wonder how Kira knew about the tryst and the crack in the wall. And the next day, Lord Asano attacked Kira in the Corridor of Pines.

* * *

“That’s why I treated you so badly,” Oishi said to Ukihashi as they sat in the reception room of the Hosokawa estate. Intent on each other, they’d forgotten that Sano, Reiko, and Hirata were present. They seemed unaware of their son, who stared at them in dismay. “I thought the two people I loved the most had betrayed me. That’s why I got drunk and quarreled with you, for all those months before I decided I could never forgive you and I had to leave you. That’s why I divorced you and took a mistress. That’s why I didn’t bother avenging Lord Asano at first. I hated him. I was glad he died.”

“Father, please don’t say any more!” Chikara exclaimed.

Oishi regarded him with sorrowful affection. “There have been too many secrets. They’ve caused too much suffering. I mustn’t keep them any longer.”

“But I tried to protect you!” Chikara was aghast. “That story I told Sano-san, it was to make you look good.”

“You lied for me,” Oishi said. “So did our comrades, when they took it upon themselves to tell contradicting stories and confuse Sano-san. They guessed that I had something to hide, and they helped me hide it even though they didn’t know what it was. I appreciate their loyalty, and yours, my son. But the time for lying is past.”

Sano was amazed that his scheme had worked, the question of what was true and false in the stories had been answered, and the mystery of why the revenge had taken so long was solved. But what had finally triggered the vendetta?

“I was mean to you because I felt so guilty about Lord Asano. I’m sorry.” Ukihashi wept. “Can you forgive me?”

Oishi held her hands. “I already have.”

Sano glanced at Reiko. She dabbed her eyes, moved by the tender scene. Sano himself was relieved that Oishi didn’t hold the adultery against Ukihashi anymore. He pitied Oishi, who was about to learn that he never should have blamed or punished his wife.

“I didn’t want to do it,” Ukihashi said. “Kira forced me. He set up the meeting between me and Lord Asano. He made us go through with it. He threatened us.”

“I know,” Oishi said. “It wasn’t your fault. Kira was to blame.”

Another surprise stunned Sano. Ukihashi wept with relief. Oishi said, “I’m the one who should apologize. I’m sorry I misjudged you. I’m sorry about taking a mistress. She was nothing to me except revenge on you.”

Reiko looked queasy. Sano could see that she was glad for Ukihashi’s sake but unhappy for Okaru’s, and she still didn’t think well of Oishi.

“Can you forgive me?” Oishi said.

“With all my heart!” Ukihashi wept and pressed her face to Oishi’s hands.

“You are my wife,” Oishi whispered. “You always will be.”

Sano interrupted: “How did you find out that Kira had set up your wife and your master? Who told you?”

Oishi turned toward Sano. His expression was dazed, as if he were awakening from a dream. He looked surprised to see Sano and everyone else. “It was Kajikawa Yosobei.”

“Who is he?” Ukihashi said, puzzled.

“A keeper of the castle,” Sano said. “He witnessed Lord Asano’s attack on Kira.”

Kajikawa had seemed to have a minor role in the forty-seven ronin case. Sano was startled to learn that his assumption about Kajikawa was wrong.

“When did Kajikawa tell you about Kira?” Sano asked.

“After I moved to Miyako,” Oishi answered. “As I said, I had no intention of avenging Lord Asano. Then one day I ran into Kajikawa. He said he was in town on business. He invited me to a teahouse. I didn’t know him well, but he was the only person from my former class who’d bothered to notice me since I’d become a ronin, and I couldn’t pass up a free handout. So I accepted. After a few drinks, he told me about Kira, Lord Asano, and my wife.”

“How did Kajikawa know what Kira had done to them?” Sano asked.

“Kajikawa said that keepers of the castle are part of the scenery; nobody notices them. He sees and hears a lot.”

Here was another big piece that had been missing from Oishi’s story the first time, Sano thought. Kajikawa had kept it secret, too.

“I wanted to rush out and confront Kira and kill him right then,” Oishi said. “But Kajikawa said he was heavily guarded. If I went after him, I would only get myself killed. Kajikawa told me to wait. It was his idea that I should act like a drunken bum and let word get back to Kira so that he would think he was safe from me.”

Kajikawa, the invisible man, had had a hand in the vendetta from the start.

“Why did Kajikawa go to any trouble for you?” Sano asked, his mind reeling from so many surprises. “What he did was conspire to commit an illegal vendetta. Why put himself in danger, when the two of you hardly knew each other?”

“I asked him. He said he felt sorry for me. I wondered if it was more than that, but I really didn’t care.” Oishi explained, “He promised that if I killed Kira, he would get me pardoned. He said he would use his influence with the shogun.”

“I didn’t know he had any,” Hirata said.

“The shogun probably doesn’t even know that Kajikawa is alive,” Sano said.

“I’m not very familiar with who has influence at court and who doesn’t,” Oishi said. “I wanted to believe him, so I did. After you arrested us, I realized my mistake.” He smiled wryly. “I expected us to be set free. It didn’t happen.”

Enlightenment washed over Sano like a sunrise. “Those were the orders you were awaiting? To be told that the shogun had pardoned you and you could go on your way?”

“Yes,” Oishi admitted.

“You must have been furious at Kajikawa for misleading you,” Sano said.

“I was,” Oishi said. “When he came to see me-it was on the night of the day after we were arrested-I wanted to kill him.”

Another mystery was solved. “So that’s what your comrades and the Hosokawa clan were keeping quiet about,” Sano said. “The fact that you had a visitor and it was Kajikawa.”

“If I’d told you, the whole story would have come out. I didn’t want that. Now I wish I had told.” Guilt tinged Oishi’s manner. “But I didn’t know what was going to happen.”

“He let part of it slip out,” Reiko murmured to Sano. “When I brought Okaru to see him. When he said his wife was the only woman he loved.”

Oishi resumed his story. “I raged at Kajikawa for breaking his promise to save us. But he was furious at me, too. He said that if he’d known I would bring forty-six other men in on the vendetta, he never would have made that promise. He said that because we’d caused such an uproar, there was nothing he could do. Our fate depended on the supreme court, and he had no influence with it. He also said there were too many judges in favor of condemning us. Our chances didn’t look good.”

“How did Kajikawa know that?” Sano asked.

“There’s a secret chamber built into a wall of the room where the supreme court meets. Kajikawa has been hiding in there, eavesdropping.”

So that was how the proceedings had leaked. The keeper had put his special knowledge of the castle to use.

“Kajikawa broke down,” Oishi said. “He cried and begged me to forgive him. He promised he would make things right.”

Premonition seeped into Sano like cold needles infusing his blood. He saw astonishment dawn on Reiko’s face. “How was Kajikawa going to make things right?”

“I didn’t bother to ask him,” Oishi said. “I didn’t believe him; I’d lost all faith in him. Then I heard that one of the judges had been attacked. And I realized that Kajikawa had tried to keep his promise.”

Reiko exclaimed, “Kajikawa hired that criminal who beat my father!”

“The man in the palanquin,” Hirata said. “It was Kajikawa.”

Sano was elated to learn the culprit’s identity. Contempt mixed with his anger at the little keeper of the castle. “It sounds just like him. Too cowardly and weak to do the job himself. Timid, hiding his face. Foolish and desperate enough to hire a stranger off the street.”

“A stranger that attacked the wrong judge,” Hirata added.

“My father, who wants to pardon the forty-seven ronin.” Reiko was shaking with rage.

Sano thought, We can handle our enemies, but the gods save us from incompetence! He said to Oishi, “The last time I spoke with you and your son, you were upset about something. Now I know what.”

Oishi nodded somberly. “Three innocent men were attacked on our behalf. Two of them are dead and the other is severely injured because of us.”

Chikara blurted out, “We never meant for anybody except Kira to be harmed!”

“We apologize to you and your wife, for what it’s worth,” Oishi said with humble contrition.

Ukihashi turned to Reiko. “Please forgive them! They didn’t even know what Kajikawa was going to do!”

“There’s no need for them to apologize or for me to forgive them,” Reiko said, although visibly struggling to control her temper. “It wasn’t their fault.”

“Kajikawa is responsible for the attack on Magistrate Ueda, not them,” Hirata said.

The apology seemed to Sano like a gift of spoiled fish. Kajikawa’s culpability didn’t negate the fact that much damage had stemmed from Oishi’s actions. In Sano’s eyes, the shine of honor had worn off the vendetta. Nonetheless, Sano could forgive the forty-seven ronin, who had been unwitting servants for Kajikawa.

“Kajikawa is responsible for more than the attack on Magistrate Ueda,” Sano said. “He set the vendetta in motion.”

Reiko gazed at Sano, astounded. “Okaru was right. There was more to the vendetta than met the eye.”

“I lied when I said I didn’t remember telling her that,” Oishi said sheepishly. “When I drink, it’s hard to keep my mouth shut.” He said to Sano, “When you told me that she was in Edo, I was upset because I might have told her more than that, and I was afraid she would remember and tell you.”

Guilt changed Reiko’s expression. “I’ve done Okaru an injustice.”

“So have I.” Oishi said with remorse, “I shouldn’t have used her.”

“But why did Kajikawa set the vendetta in motion?” Reiko asked.

“I suspect he had his own grudge against Kira.” Sano recalled his talk with Kajikawa. “He tried to cast aspersion on Kira twice. First he said that Lord Asano had called Kira a corrupt snake. Then he brought up the rumor about Kira poisoning his brother-in-law the daimyo. It’s time for another talk with Kajikawa. We’re going back to Edo Castle.”

“Do I have to leave, too?” Ukihashi clung to her husband. She held out a hand to her son. Chikara took it, although he was obviously disturbed by the revelations he’d heard. She appealed to Reiko. “May I stay?”

“My hosts will find a room for her,” Oishi said, “and for our daughters.”

“Is that all right?” Reiko asked Sano.

“Yes.” Sano didn’t want to separate the reunited family any more than Reiko did. The fate of the forty-seven ronin was still up in the air, and whatever time they had left, Oishi and his wife and children should spend together. On the verge of being torn from his own family, Sano couldn’t wish the same on anyone else.