“Not this time,” Sano said.
He gripped his sword in both hands, swung it up, and brought it down in a vicious arc. The blade struck Yoritomo’s neck, slicing through flesh and bone. Yoritomo’s head fell on the ground with a thud that drowned in the cries of astonishment that rose from the crowd.
“No!” Yanagisawa screamed.
His face was so twisted by rage and grief that he barely looked human. He fell on his knees beside Yoritomo’s head. Sano saw everyone including his own troops, except for his detectives, gazing at him in shock: They hadn’t thought him capable of what he’d done. Vengeful satisfaction filled Sano. Let Yanagisawa suffer the worst agony that a father who loved his son could. Let him pay the price for all the trouble he’d ever caused Sano, the political strife he’d fomented, the violence his actions had provoked.
As Yanagisawa cradled the head in his lap, sobbed, and tugged off the hood, the spectators’ expressions changed from shock to puzzlement. “There’s no blood,” someone said.
Blood hadn’t gushed from Yoritomo’s neck as it should have; none stained the ground. Sano’s sword was clean except for a dark smudge on the blade. Another cry rang from Yanagisawa as he beheld the head he’d uncovered.
“This isn’t my son!”
The head belonged to a man with cropped, bushy hair and missing teeth. His eyeballs were purplish and deflated like rotten berries, swarming with maggots. The neck of the body buried in the ground resembled a cut of old meat, shriveled and juiceless. The wind blew up a powerful stench of decayed flesh. The shogun turned away, doubled over, and retched.
Marume and Fukida grinned at Sano. They alone in the audience had known Sano’s whole plan. Sano had decided not to bring Yoritomo to the execution ground. He’d wanted to hold Yoritomo in reserve in case he needed further leverage against Yanagisawa. He and his detectives had obtained a body from Edo Morgue, dressed it in Yoritomo’s clothes, and covered its face with the hood. Sano had decapitated a corpse.
The assembly gasped, murmured, and exclaimed like a crowd awed by a magician. Yanagisawa hurled the head at Sano and leaped to his feet, his grief transformed into rage. “A curse on you for your blasted trickery!”
He lunged at Sano, drawing his sword. Sano’s troops rode into the circle to stop him, but Yanagisawa’s headed them off. Sano raised his blade and deflected Yanagisawa’s cut. The field erupted in riotous action. The commoners ran for their lives while Yanagisawa’s troops assailed Sano’s. The shogun staggered around, crying, “Help! Somebody save me!”
As he and Yanagisawa lashed at each other, Sano felt a bloodlust hotter than any he’d known in previous battles. It stemmed from their turbulent history together. And he felt the same heat, the same murderous intent, flaming from Yanagisawa.
“Where’s my son?” Yanagisawa demanded as he dodged Sano’s cuts. He pivoted, then struck and struck again, driving Sano backward into the battle that raged between their armies. “What have you done with him?”
“Yoritomo is alive,” Sano said as he parried, sliced, and forced Yanagisawa to retreat across the execution ground. He’d hidden the young man in his rice warehouse. “Surrender, and I’ll let you see him.”
But Sano hoped Yanagisawa wouldn’t surrender. He wanted to fight to the finish even though he’d intended to take Yanagisawa alive. His samurai heritage compelled him to conquer and kill.
Yanagisawa laughed with bitter scorn. “I won’t. Not after you’ve shown me what your promises are worth.”
As they fought, Sano experienced a strange sensation that the boundary between himself and Yanagisawa had dissolved. He knew every move that Yanagisawa was going to make. He parried by instinct; he effortlessly evaded strikes. This was what the martial arts masters called “oneness with the opponent,” the concept that a samurai and his adversary are partners in battle. Sano had always been skeptical about it, for how could he be partners with someone who was trying to kill him? But now Sano and Yanagisawa merged into one person. Their history fused with the mystical energy of warfare.
He was his enemy; his enemy was him.
Although their union improved his defenses, it played havoc with his offensive. Every slash that Sano launched, Yanagisawa avoided. Sano knew he was the superior fighter, but he couldn’t score a single cut. They grew breathless from attacking each other and missing. Sano saw, from the corner of his eye, that many of the daimyo, the officials, and their men had joined the battle. Most were fighting Yanagisawa’s troops, but others fought Sano’s. Yanagisawa had won many allies. Taking count would have given Sano a clear lie of the political land, but he was too caught up in his and Yanagisawa’s battle.
They circled each other around a gibbet, their blades whistling around the posts. They were both panting and sweating. If one or the other didn’t win soon, they would both die of exhaustion. Faster and faster Sano wielded his sword. Faster and faster Yanagisawa parried. Their blades were a metallic whir between them. Yanagisawa’s face tightened into a snarl, a mirror of Sano’s own face. Sano felt their blows ring through his bones. His wrists, elbows, and shoulders grew sore from twisting and flexing. He could feel the same pain echo from Yanagisawa’s joints. His sense of himself as a separate individual blurred.
Sano mustered his fading energy, put all his strength into each cut. He felt the spasm of a strained tendon in Yanagisawa’s arm, felt it in his own, heard the pained cry from both their mouths. Yanagisawa let go of his sword, which spun away through the air. Sano’s foot slipped in a patch of slime. Before he could regain his balance, Yanagisawa hurled himself at Sano. Together they fell.
They crashed to the ground. Yanagisawa landed on top of Sano and grabbed for Sano’s sword. His hands clawed Sano’s, trying to pry them off the hilt. As Sano fought Yanagisawa for control of the weapon, they rolled across the fetid dirt while horses stomped and riders battled around them. Their faces were so close that Sano could see his reflection in Yanagisawa’s eyeballs. They gasped each other’s breath. Locked with Yanagisawa in an embrace more intimate than sex with a woman, Sano felt their muscles straining, their pulses pounding with the same fast, furious rhythm, the heat in their blood rising.
It no longer mattered who killed whom. Sano gave up the notion that he deserved to win because he was good and Yanagisawa evil.
They were two incarnations of the same being.
Still, Sano and Yanagisawa grappled, struggled, fought with all their savage might. Stripped of individuality, reduced to the most basic principle of combat, they must kill or be killed.
A high-pitched cry rang out above the noise: “I order you all to cease fighting!”
Sano barely recognized the shogun’s voice. He threw himself onto Yanagisawa, who writhed and bucked under his weight. A tiny part of Sano’s awareness registered that the shogun stood on his palanquin, waving his arms and shouting, “I don’t like fights. Stop at once!”
Across the field, combatants retreated. The shogun’s word was law. Only Sano and Yanagisawa ignored his command. The sword was between them, their hands clenched around the hilt under their chins, the blade all that separated their faces. Sano forced the blade down toward Yanagisawa, who pushed it up at him. They clenched their teeth, grunted, and strained. They both knew the end was near for somebody.
Men crowded around them. Sano was seized and pulled off Yanagisawa. The sword ripped out of Yanagisawa’s hands and came away in Sano’s. Their mystical union snapped like a rope stretched too tight. Detectives Marume and Fukida wrested the sword away from Sano. Other men restrained Yanagisawa, who struggled to attack Sano. As they gasped for breath and glared at each other through the sweat dripping into their eyes, the shogun minced into the space between them. Placing one hand on Yanagisawa’s heaving chest and the other on Sano’s, he said, “Whatever your, ahh, quarrel is, you can settle it later.”
He laughed with joy as he announced to the crowd, “My beloved Yoritomo-san is alive. Chamberlain Sano is innocent, and my dear old friend Yanagisawa-san is home! Let’s all go back to the castle and celebrate!”
34
The celebration lasted five days.
Spring came. Gentle rains put out the fires that had plagued Edo and washed the air clean of smoke. Cherry
