The Shogun's Daughter

43

The morning after the funeral was gray, windy. Clouds shadowed the castle. In the palace, an assembly convened. The shogun sat on the dais, flanked by Ienobu on his right and Yanagisawa on his left. “I have two announcements,” he said to the government officials packed into his reception chamber.

Sano and Masahiro sat together in the front row, on the higher of the two floor levels below the dais. Sano’s cut, bruised face was stiff with his effort to conceal his astonishment. He couldn’t believe he’d lived to see this day.

The shogun held up his index finger. “I have heard a full report about the confession made by that woman Korika. I am satisfied that she set the fire and killed my son.” Grief momentarily halted him; he swallowed. “Sano-san, I hereby void the charges against you and your family. I declare all of you innocent of murder and treason.”

“Many thanks, Your Excellency.” Sano bowed. Waves of disapproval emanated toward him from the silent, motionless audience. He remembered the previous assembly, the purge, General Isogai, and Elder Ohgami. He had no friends here.

He looked at the men beside the shogun. Ienobu met his gaze calmly. Yanagisawa’s face was as white and rigid as an ice sculpture. Only the molten heat in his eyes hinted at how furious he was that Sano had survived against all expectation. If the death of his son’s murderer gave him any satisfaction, Sano couldn’t tell.

“I also excuse you for killing three of your guards when you escaped from house arrest,” the shogun said. “You can keep your post as rebuilding magistrate. And Masahiro, you are reinstated as head of my private chambers. That should suffice as reward for, ahh, solving the murders of my son and daughter.”

Masahiro glowed with jubilation. Sano was glad, too, but he felt bad about killing the innocent men. He also felt a bad sense of unfinished business. He couldn’t consider the crimes solved. Ienobu’s role in them had yet to be exposed. Sano and Reiko were the only people who knew about it so far.

“Today begins a fresh start for me.” Determined to follow the course of action into which Sano had pushed him, the shogun cast a baleful gaze around the assembly. “None of you will twist me around your fingers again.”

The disapproval aimed at Sano grew stronger. These men, who’d been his enemies to begin with, blamed him for the shogun’s fresh start, which would diminish their power. Sano himself wasn’t sure he liked it. Had he created a monster that not even he could control?

“Now for my second announcement,” the shogun said. “I am adopting my nephew, the honorable Ienobu, and naming him as my heir.”

Ienobu bowed to the shogun, then the assembly. He acted as humble as if inheriting the regime were a duty for which he must nobly sacrifice himself. Nobody seemed surprised. Sano wasn’t. The shogun had had his face rubbed in his own mortality twice. He needed more than ever to choose a successor. Ienobu, his closest surviving relative, was the logical choice. Sano suspected that many people weren’t happy about it, but they didn’t object and test the shogun’s new temperament. Neither did Sano.

He and Reiko were the only people who’d heard Korika’s and Lord Tsunanori’s full confessions. Last night, when they’d talked over what had happened, they’d agreed not to tell anyone, not even Masahiro. It was too dangerous to accuse Ienobu of multiple treasonous crimes when the only evidence against him was the words of two witnesses who were now dead.

Yoshisato the fraud wouldn’t inherit the dictatorship. Ienobu the double murderer was set to be the next shogun.

“Consider this a warning,” the shogun said. “You know what happened to the person who murdered my previous heir. Harm this one at your own peril.”

All attention swiveled to Yanagisawa, the most likely threat to Ienobu. A muscle in Yanagisawa’s rigid jaw twitched. He didn’t look at anyone. Nor did he reveal his disappointment that instead of being the adoptive father of the shogun’s heir, he was the enemy of the next shogun. Sano could only imagine how Yanagisawa would react if he knew Ienobu was partially responsible for Yoshisato’s death. He wondered whether, or when, to tell Yanagisawa.

“In view of new circumstances,” the shogun said, “some changes in the government are necessary.”

Yanagisawa stood. He didn’t wait for himself and his allies to be purged and replaced by men friendly to Ienobu. His back straight, his eyes ablaze, he walked out of the room.

* * *

“Here’s your medicine,” Midori said, handing Reiko a ceramic cup.

Reiko sat up in bed. She drank the potion of lotus seeds, ginseng, cassia twig, ginger, and beef heart that the doctor had brewed. Then she lay back, clasping her hands over her flat, tender stomach. Blood oozed into the cloth pad between her legs. Her eyes were sore from weeping.

“You can have another baby,” Midori tried to console her.

A sob caught Reiko’s breath. No child could replace this one that she’d spent five years hoping to conceive.

“I know this is terrible,” Midori said, “but remember, you’re lucky to be alive.”

“I know.” But nothing could assuage Reiko’s heartbreak. Nothing could change what had happened yesterday.

When the troops had come to remove Korika’s body, they’d found Reiko lying beside it, in the throes of labor. They’d carried her home, where she’d delivered a stillborn baby boy. Reiko had cried while she held him. He was hardly bigger than her hand. His pink skin was wrinkled and blue-veined and translucent, his eyes closed as if in sleep. Reiko loved him as immediately and powerfully as she’d loved Masahiro and Akiko when they were born. But he would never grow up, never know her or his father or his brother or sister. This was a loss whose magnitude she’d never comprehended, a grief worse than any she’d experienced.

“Your family is lucky to be alive, too.” Midori spoke as if she knew her words were no comfort to Reiko, but she had to keep trying. “It’s a miracle, how everything turned out.”

Moments after the baby had been born, Sano had come home. He’d told Reiko that the news of Korika’s confession had reached the shogun at the mausoleum. Reiko tried to be happy that she’d exonerated him and her family was safe. With Sano’s reputation cleared, the servants had returned. But good fortune didn’t abate Reiko’s immense sorrow or guilt.

She’d known she was overexerting herself. No matter that she would do it again given the same circumstances. She’d saved her family but sacrificed her baby.

Midori said, “Look who’s here,” and left.

Akiko stood in the doorway, her face tight and unsmiling. “That old lady is here to see you.” She turned to go before Reiko could say she wasn’t receiving visitors.

“Wait, Akiko.” Reiko hadn’t seen her daughter since they’d separated in the passage yesterday. “Come here.”

Tears glistened in Akiko’s eyes. “You left me.” Her angry voice wobbled. “You went away and left me.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” More guilt pained Reiko. Not only was the baby’s death her fault, but she’d hurt her daughter. “Let me explain.” She extended her hand. “Sit with me.”

Akiko looked at Reiko’s hand as if it held dung that Reiko was trying to pass off as candy. But she came, against her will, and knelt by Reiko.

Reiko exerted herself to choose words that a child would understand. “I didn’t want to leave you. I never do. But there will be times when I must. Yesterday I left because I needed to do things to save your life.” She spoke with all the sincerity and gentleness that her grieving spirit could muster. “You’re my little girl, and I would do anything for you because I love you.”

Akiko’s face worked. She was obviously torn between wanting to believe Reiko and not wanting to be placated so easily and hurt again. Then her tears spilled. “It’s my fault the baby died,” she blurted out. “Because I didn’t want it.”

Surprise and alarm stunned Reiko. While she’d been feeling guilty about Akiko, her daughter had been harboring an unfounded guilt about her. Reiko gathered Akiko in her arms. “No, it’s not your fault. Just because you think something, that doesn’t make it happen.”

Stiff and resisting at first, Akiko relaxed as she sobbed. Reiko soothed her with pats and murmurs. Soon Akiko pulled away, uncomfortable with too much closeness. But she skipped out of the room, light enough to fly.

Reiko was glad that the baby was the only child she’d lost.

A servant ushered in Lady Nobuko, the last person Reiko wanted to see. Lady Nobuko knelt, bowed, and offered Reiko a gift-wrapped box. “I’ve brought you some herbs from my doctor. They’re good for women who have miscarried.”

Reiko made no move to take the box. “Why are you here? Our business is finished.”

Lady Nobuko raised her eyebrows at Reiko’s discourtesy. She set the box by the bed. “I wanted to express my condolences and to thank you and your husband for bringing Lord Tsunanori to justice.” She looked extraordinarily well. The spasm around her eye was slight today. “When he commits seppuku, I shall be there to watch.” Her gaunt face seemed fuller, with satisfaction. “My only regret is that he won’t suffer for as long as Tsuruhime did. All in all, things couldn’t have turned out better.”

Reiko couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “A young man was burned to death. You call that good?”

“Yoshisato deserved to die,” Lady Nobuko said, unfazed by Reiko’s repugnance. “And Yanagisawa deserves to be punished for his plot to take over the regime. The loss of his pawn was divine retribution.”

“There was nothing divine about it,” Reiko said. “Korika murdered Yoshisato. She’s dead, too. Don’t you care? Or are you just glad that the shogun decided she was solely to blame and he’s not punishing you?”

Lady Nobuko smiled condescendingly. “You young women think the world should dance to your whims. When you’re my age, you’ll understand that everything has a price, and sometimes one must pay it and be glad to take whatever one can get.”

Reiko thought her innocent baby had paid the ultimate price of everything that had happened since she and Sano had agreed to investigate Tsuruhime’s death. She hated Lady Nobuko for her selfish, cynical attitude.

“Ienobu is going to be the next shogun,” Reiko said. “Is that a price you’re glad to pay?”

“Ienobu is a legitimate Tokugawa.”

Reiko couldn’t reveal that Ienobu had put Korika up to murdering Yoshisato and Lord Tsunanori up to murdering Tsuruhime, exercising his strange, manipulative effect on both. She’d promised Sano that she would keep it secret. Lest she yield to the temptation to blurt it out and smack the contentment off Lady Nobuko’s face, Reiko said quietly, “Please go.”

* * *

Outside the palace, Yanagisawa stormed through the grounds. Buried up to his chin in the ruins of his hopes, suffocating in anger, he could hardly breathe.

He’d lost his chance to rule Japan. He couldn’t make up a new prophecy and style one of his other sons as the shogun’s offspring. The shogun wouldn’t fall for that again.

Sano had lived to plague him another day. And with Ienobu ensconced as the shogun’s heir, Yanagisawa’s days were numbered.

How could this have happened? What in hell was he going to do?

Terror sped Yanagisawa along the paths. There was no place safe to go. Aimless flight took him to the garden behind the palace. Ienobu shuffled toward him, accompanied by two guards. Yanagisawa’s anger blasted at Ienobu, like a torch flame blown by the wind. Ienobu had exploited Yoshisato’s murder. Ienobu had won.

Yanagisawa stalked over to Ienobu. “I’ll see that you never become shogun.”

Ienobu grinned. “On the contrary-you’re going to make sure I do.”

Yanagisawa stared, incredulous. “Are you insane? I’ll kill you first.”

The guards reached for their swords. Ienobu said to them, “Let us have a private word.” After they’d moved out of earshot, he said, “You’ll change your attitude when you hear the news I have for you.” He spoke in a dramatic whisper: “Yoshisato is alive.”

Surprise momentarily tied Yanagisawa’s tongue. Then he laughed in derision. “Don’t talk nonsense.” But Ienobu’s words gave credence to his secret, irrational notion that Yoshisato wasn’t dead, that Yoshisato was coming back.

“Yoshisato didn’t die in that fire. He wasn’t murdered.” Ienobu’s bulging eyes gleamed. He knew he had Yanagisawa as surely as if he’d closed his fist around Yanagisawa’s heart.

Resisting the desire to believe a man he hated and distrusted, Yanagisawa turned away.

“Don’t you want to know what really happened the night of the fire?”

Yanagisawa kept his back to Ienobu, but he was immobilized.

“I became privy to certain conversations between Lady Nobuko and her lady-in-waiting. I deduced that Korika wanted to harm Yoshisato because of what you supposedly did to her mistress. I recognized an opportunity.”

Smug pride inflected Ienobu’s tone. Yanagisawa listened in spite of himself as Ienobu said, “The next day I paid Korika a visit. I suggested that fire was a good way to kill someone and make it look like an accident. I said that if she went out that night, she would be able to move freely without being observed. That night I arranged for the castle guards to be absent from their posts. Korika went to the heir’s residence. Five of my men got there first. They plugged the well. They killed Yoshisato’s personal bodyguards. Then they went after Yoshisato. He put up quite a fight, but they tied him up and drugged him. Then they waited.”

Yanagisawa envisioned his son struggling as the intruders overpowered him. He turned to stare, eyes wide with shock, at Ienobu.

“Soon Korika arrived. She set the fire and ran away. Before the fire bells started ringing, before the house burned down, my men dragged the dead guards inside. Then they carried Yoshisato out. During the uproar when everyone was rushing to put out the fire, nobody paid attention to my men carrying a trunk out the back gate of the castle.”

Yanagisawa’s wish to believe the story was so fierce, it felt like a wild beast wrestling with the rational part of him that doubted Ienobu’s scenario. “There were four corpses in the ruins. Everybody was accounted for. Yoshisato didn’t get out alive.”

“The arithmetic was a slight problem.” Ienobu chuckled. “I solved it by having my men kill one of their comrades. They left his body in Yoshisato’s chamber. He was the right size.”

This ruthlessness sounded just like the man Yanagisawa had always suspected Ienobu to be. This detail fed the beast in his mind that fought to convince him that Ienobu was telling the truth. The politician in him scorned the story as pure fabrication.

“Why would you save Yoshisato?” Yanagisawa demanded. “If he’s alive, he’s the shogun’s first choice for an heir. He’s a threat to you.”

“Because I need him,” Ienobu said. “He’s not the only threat. There are people who don’t want me to be the next shogun. I want you to help me neutralize my opposition. You’re good at that kind of thing. When I’m shogun, you can have Yoshisato back.”

The cruel manipulation, the nerve, the self-delusion of the man! “I was right. You are insane. I would never lift a finger to help you. And I won’t listen to any more of this.” Yanagisawa vehemently denied his own cherished delusion. “Yoshisato is dead. You can’t trick me into thinking otherwise.”

“Here’s proof that he’s alive.” With a sly smile, Ienobu reached under his sash and pulled out a sheet of white paper, which he offered to Yanagisawa.

Despite his better judgment, Yanagisawa snatched the paper and opened it. He saw black characters written in Yoshisato’s bold, graceful, yet precise hand. The letter was dated the day after the fire. Even as tears of yearning stung his eyes, Yanagisawa said, “This is a forgery.”

“Don’t be so quick to debunk it. Read it first.”

Against his will, Yanagisawa read:

Honorable Adoptive Father:

You’ve really outdone yourself this time. You got me kidnapped by your enemy Ienobu! I never imagined that anyone could match you in ruthlessness, but he does. If you ever want to see me again, you’d better cooperate with him. On second thought, it would be better for you if you didn’t cooperate. Because if I get out of here alive, I’m going to kill you. After all the trouble your schemes have caused me, and my poor mother, you deserve to rot in hell.

Yoshisato

Yanagisawa could almost hear Yoshisato speaking the words. Ienobu couldn’t have written them. Ienobu couldn’t have known how Yoshisato and Yanagisawa talked to each other.

“Handwriting is easily faked, but the voice is more difficult.” Ienobu clucked his tongue. “Yoshisato doesn’t like you very much, does he?”

Yanagisawa wanted to bury his face in the letter and weep with the joy of a father who finally believes that his dead child has been miraculously resurrected. Instead he glared at Ienobu, who’d made him suffer the anguish of thinking Yoshisato had been murdered and now sought to use him. He grabbed the front of Ienobu’s robe.

“Where is he?”

“In a safe, secret place, with my men,” Ienobu said. “Take your hands off me.”

The guards started toward Yanagisawa. He flung Ienobu away from him. “The shogun will be overjoyed to hear that his son is alive. He’ll make you tell me where Yoshisato is.”

“You won’t breathe a word of this conversation to him or anyone else.” Ienobu’s eyes gleamed; he enjoyed Yanagisawa’s distress. “If you do, I’ll have Yoshisato killed. You’ll never see him again.”

Yanagisawa boiled with fury and hatred. “I’ll kill you!”

“If anything bad happens to me, or if you refuse to support me as the next shogun, Yoshisato dies,” Ienobu said.

In spite of himself Yanagisawa felt a grudging esteem for Ienobu, who’d bettered him in imagination and audacity. Yanagisawa had never dreamed of, let alone attempted, such a move.

“If you cooperate with me, you get him back safe and sound.” Ienobu smiled expectantly, confidently. “Well? Do we have a deal?”

The wild beast inside Yanagisawa thrashed and bellowed. Yanagisawa desperately wanted Yoshisato to return. Rationality screamed at him not to be deceived. “You’ve no reason to bring Yoshisato back. If you do, the shogun will disinherit you in favor of him. You’re going to string me along, while I dispatch your enemies for you, until you’re shogun. And then you’ll kill Yoshisato so that he can’t raise a revolt against you.”

“That’s a definite possibility,” Ienobu agreed. “But remember: Unless you cooperate, Yoshisato dies. For real.”

All his life Yanagisawa had taken pride in his ability to find a way around a problem. Now he found none, saw no choice but the bargain offered by Ienobu. Desperation pushed him to accept even though he didn’t trust Ienobu to uphold his part of the bargain, even though it was so humiliating. He would accept for Yoshisato’s sake.

“All right.” The words tasted as foul as excrement in Yanagisawa’s mouth. “You win.”

Ienobu nodded as if he’d never doubted he would. “By the way, you can keep your post as chamberlain. It will give you the authority to do what you need to do for me. Oh, and when you dispatch my enemies, start with your friend Sano.” He turned and shuffled over to his guards. They accompanied him into the palace.

Yanagisawa stood alone in the garden, consumed by rage yet less bereft and lost than when he’d walked out of the assembly. “You win for now,” he said to the absent Ienobu. “But I’m going to find Yoshisato. And I swear that as soon as he’s safe, I will kill you, you bastard.”

* * *

Still groggy from the medicine the doctor had given her, Taeko sat on the veranda, her right arm in a sling, watching the ducks swim in the pond. Yesterday seemed like a dream. Her shoulder had hurt so bad that it had blanked out her memory of much that had happened. She did recall her mother crying over her, the doctor saying her shoulder had been dislocated, and fainting because of the awful pain when he reset it in the socket. The rest was hard to believe.

Masahiro came out of the house. Taeko snapped fully alert. He looked as shy as she felt with him. He crouched near her and asked, “How’s your shoulder?”

Looking sideways at him, Taeko said, “Better.”

He nodded, then frowned. “You shouldn’t have climbed up on the tower. It was stupid and dangerous. When you caught me, we could have both fallen and been killed!”

Taeko was relieved as well as saddened by his scolding. The scene on the tower really had happened. She glanced at Masahiro’s ankle. Just above the top of his white sock was a purple bruise that encircled his ankle, dotted with raw, red gouges from her fingernails.

Masahiro sighed. “That’s not what I meant to say.” He said gruffly, “You saved my life. Thank you.”

She heard new respect in his voice. It gave her the confidence to look directly at him. Their eyes met. His were serious, without the usual annoyance, teasing, or condescending affection.

“Why?” Masahiro sounded puzzled. “Why did you risk your life to save me?”

Taeko didn’t have the words to express her feelings, but she couldn’t hide them, either. As she gazed at Masahiro, all her love shone out from her eyes.

His eyes darkened with astonishment. A shadow of fear crossed his expression. This boy Taeko had thought wasn’t afraid of anything was afraid of how much she cared for him, how much she was willing to do for his sake. Something in the air changed. The garden shimmered and flowed, like a painting with water poured on it. Masahiro’s image blurred. Taeko had a sense that years had passed in an instant. She knew, without knowing how she knew, that she was seeing the future. Someday, when she and Masahiro were older, they would be much more to each other than they were now. Their fates were connected.

Clarity returned to the world. Masahiro abruptly stood up. He looked confused, as if he’d experienced something he didn’t understand and didn’t know whether he liked. His trousers covered the bruise around his ankle, but Taeko knew it was there. She had the strange, comforting idea that she’d put her mark on Masahiro.

Without a word he went into the house. Taeko had no urge to run after him. She smiled.

He could leave, and she didn’t mind, because he would come back to her. He would always go, but he would always have to come back.

* * *

Sano hesitated at the threshold of Reiko’s chamber. His wife was just as he’d left her this morning-in bed, her tear-swollen eyes gazing into space, her frail hands clasped over her empty womb. When he knelt at her side, she looked at him as if she were alone with her grief on one side of an ocean and he on the other with the rest of the world.

“Are you feeling better?” Sano asked.

The misery on her face intensified. He knew he’d said the wrong thing. Everything he’d said since he’d come home and found her weeping over their stillborn son had been wrong. He couldn’t seem to find the right thing to say.

“I was just at the shogun’s assembly,” Sano said, resorting to conversation that was impersonal, less fraught with hazards. He told Reiko that the shogun had officially voided the charges against them and reinstated him and Masahiro to their positions. “It looks like Yanagisawa will be forced out of the regime.”

“That’s good.” Reiko hardly seemed to care.

Sano was sorry about losing their child, but his grief couldn’t equal hers. He hadn’t carried it inside him for six months. It had never seemed as real to him as their other children, and he realized he’d been bracing himself to lose it; Reiko had been through so much during her pregnancy. He hated that she had paid such a high price for the solution to their problems. Her love for him and her effort to save him had cost her the child for which she’d longed.

To distract her from her grief, and himself from his guilt, Sano said, “The shogun has named Ienobu as his heir.”

“Oh.” Reiko’s tone was indifferent. “What are you going to do?”

Once she would have said we, Sano thought sadly. She’d have rushed to help him prevent Ienobu the murderer from becoming the next shogun. “I’ll find other proof that Ienobu had a hand in Tsuruhime’s and Yoshisato’s deaths. There must be witnesses or evidence somewhere. When I have enough, I’ll go to the shogun.”

Reiko didn’t respond. Sano knew it was selfish to mind the change in her, but his heart ached with loneliness. Many times he’d tried to prevent Reiko from involving herself in things that were dangerous. Now he would give anything to restore her to her normal, feisty self.

“There’s something else I have to do.” Sano didn’t like to bother Reiko with problems, but he had no one else to confide in about his other unfinished business, and he couldn’t help trying to draw her back to him. “It’s about Hirata. The time I gave him to resolve things himself is up. I have to arrest him and his friends in the secret society and prosecute them for treason.”

Alarm overshadowed the misery in Reiko’s expression. For the first time Sano had her full attention. “You would really do that to Hirata?”

“I don’t want to.” There had been few things Sano wanted less. “I have to.”

“But he’s been your friend for fifteen years. He saved your life.”

“I know. That’s what makes it so hard.”

“He and his friends haven’t yet done anything to hurt the regime.”

“Not yet,” Sano said grimly.

“Why should you care about protecting the regime?” Reiko said with a hint of her old fire. “Remember what the regime almost did to us. Look what the shogun did to your face.”

“It’s not about whether the shogun or the regime are worth protecting. It’s about honor.” Sano confessed, “I came close to throwing away mine, telling off the shogun like that.” But he was too ashamed to tell Reiko what else he meant, that he’d almost tried to kill the shogun. “I have to recommit to Bushido. That means not making allowances for a friend at the expense of my duty to my lord.”

One more step out of line and he wasn’t a true samurai anymore.

A sob at the door startled him. Midori stood there, her hand at her throat, her expression stricken. She’d overheard everything about Hirata. “I knew he was up to something bad. I just knew it!” She rushed into the room and fell on her knees before Sano. “He didn’t mean to be a traitor. It was a mistake! Please give him another chance!”

“I gave him many chances,” Sano said, distressed by her anguish yet bound to his duty. “He just used up the last one.”

“But what about his children? What about me?” Midori said, horrified by what she saw as Sano’s cruelty. “We’ve done nothing wrong. Are you going to put us to death, too?”

A traitor’s family shared his punishment. That was the law. Sano had avoided thinking about what would happen to Midori and the children when he prosecuted Hirata, but the issue was now as unavoidable as his course of action.

“I don’t have a choice.” Sano felt a despair more anguishing than he’d thought possible.

“I can’t believe this.” In a panic, Midori seized Reiko’s hand. “Talk to him,” she begged. “Make him change his mind!”

Reiko wilted, as if arguing was too much for her; she knew she couldn’t change Sano’s mind. She sank into deeper desolation. Sano could tell what she was thinking: First the baby was lost; now their beloved friends.

“Please!” Midori prostrated herself, her hands extended to Sano. “My husband saved your life. Our daughter saved your son’s.” Forsaking propriety, she called in the debts. “Have mercy!”

Sano wished with all the fervor in him that things could be different. If he’d dealt with Hirata’s misbehavior earlier, he might have headed off this calamity. If only his learning the truth about Hirata’s secret society hadn’t coincided with his own breakdown! If he’d had no lapse in honor to atone for, he might have been able to bend the law.

His wishes were in vain. Bushido and conscience pressured Sano to take the high, difficult road.

“I can’t.” At this moment Sano hated himself more than he’d ever hated Yanagisawa or the shogun. But he’d gone after Yanagisawa because he and Yoshisato were committing treason. He couldn’t look the other way for Hirata any more than he could let Ienobu inherit the regime after setting up two murders. “I have to treat Hirata like the criminal he is.”

* * *

Hirata opened eyes crusted with dried tears and blood. Flat on his back, he gazed up at a low ceiling studded with rocks. Haloes of light rimmed lanterns mounted on stands around him. Slow, raspy breaths filled his dry nostrils with the smell of dank earth and pungent chemicals. His body felt stiff and numb, his mind fogged with a sleep too heavy to be natural. A droning sound filled his ears. Hirata tried to sit up.

Tight cuffs around his wrists and ankles bound him to the padded surface on which he lay. Panic dispelled some of the sleep-fog. Hirata raised his head. He saw his torso and limbs encased in white cloth bandages stained with green ooze. On his left, a ceramic bottle hung upside down on a pole. The bottle had a long, thin metal tube inserted in its stopper. The tube’s other end was stuck in his arm and tied in place with string. The place seemed to be an underground cave. Tahara and Kitano bent over a hearth on which an iron pot simmered. Their lips moved. The sound was their voices chanting.

“Where am I?” His voice was a feeble croak.

Kitano continued chanting as he stirred the pot. Tahara came to stand over Hirata. “In a safe place where no one will bother us.” His unfriendly face was still bruised from the battle. Not much time had passed since then.

“What happened?” he asked.

“General Otani punished you,” Tahara answered.

“What are you doing to me?”

“Secret medical treatments and mystical healing spells. Your wounds are pretty bad.”

Still chanting, Kitano pushed a strange apparatus on wheels toward Hirata. It was a bellows connected by a metal tube to the neck of a large ceramic jar. Kitano fetched the pot from the hearth. His scarred face was covered with raw, stitched-up gashes from his fight with Deguchi. He poured the pot’s contents into the jar, corked it, and inserted another, thinner tube through the cork. Tahara connected the end of the thin tube to a leather mask, which he pressed over Hirata’s nose and mouth. Kitano pumped the bellows. Hirata moaned as steam laced with sweet chemicals invaded his lungs.

“Why…?” The mask muffled his voice. The fog of sleep thickened.

“Why are we healing you instead of letting you die?” Tahara said, his hostile voice echoing in the cave. “Because General Otani has further use for you.”

With his last waking thought Hirata wished he were dead. That was better than being saved in order that he could continue his treasonous collaboration with Tahara, Kitano, and the ghost. Worse trouble was coming. But a glint of hope eased his anguish, illuminated the noxious black sleep that overtook Hirata’s consciousness.

As long as he was alive, he had a chance to destroy his enemies, make amends to his family and Sano, and restore his honor.