With intense longing she thought of her home. She recalled awakening in her own bright, airy bedchamber, with Sano’s arms around her and Masahiro pattering into the room to crawl under the quilt with them. Sano must be busy working now; probably he didn’t yet know about her abduction. Masahiro would be enjoying the wonders that each new day brought him. She blinked back a rush of tears and forbade herself to indulge her misery. She rose and circled her prison, trying to see out the windows.
On three sides of the room, the cracks in the shutters gave narrow views of sunlight and shadow dappling pine boughs that bristled with green needles. Birds winged past in flashes of color and motion. On the fourth side, brilliant blue sky dazzled Reiko. She heard the waves lap and gulls screech as she tilted her head, straining to glimpse buildings or people. But there were none that she could see. Despair assailed Reiko. The prison seemed isolated in remote country, far from help.
“Oh!” Midori exclaimed suddenly. She sat up, and surprise rounded her swollen eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Reiko said, hurrying to kneel beside Midori.
“Nothing. My baby just moved.” Midori laughed for joy. “It’s all right!”
“Thank the gods,” Reiko said as relief filled her.
Midori’s body tensed; she grunted. In response to a questioning look from Reiko, she said, “I just had a cramp.”
“That means the baby will be coming soon,” Lady Keisho-in said, nodding wisely.
Trepidation pursed Midori’s mouth. A new problem beset Reiko. What if Midori should go into labor here? That Reiko had given birth herself didn’t make her an expert at delivering babies. She wouldn’t know what to do if something went wrong. Who could help Midori? Reiko considered Lady Keisho-in. Whenever anyone at the palace got sick or hurt, the shogun’s mother panicked; the sight of suffering made her ill. She would be of little use as a midwife. Reiko looked toward Lady Yanagisawa-and realized that the woman hadn’t changed position nor made a sound for hours.
“Lady Yanagisawa?” Reiko said.
When the woman didn’t respond, Reiko gently shook her by the shoulder. Lady Yanagisawa rolled, limp and unresisting, toward Reiko. Her half-open eyes gazed dully at nothing. Her skin had a pallid, greenish cast. A fly alit in drool that glistened on her parted lips. She didn’t even flinch.
“Lady Yanagisawa, wake up,” Reiko said, her voice quavering as a new fear besieged her.
The woman neither stirred nor replied. Reiko touched her hands. They were limp and ice-cold. Lady Keisho-in crawled over to join Reiko.
“Is she dead?” Keisho-in asked, staring with ghoulish awe at Lady Yanagisawa.
Much as Reiko detested and feared Lady Yanagisawa, she didn’t want her to die. Reiko hated for criminals to murder anyone, and Lady Yanagisawa was the mother of a simpleminded daughter who needed her. Furthermore, Reiko felt responsible for Lady Yanagisawa because she herself was the reason the woman had joined the ill-fated trip. If not for their friendship, Keisho-in probably wouldn’t have invited Lady Yanagisawa. Dread and guilt fused in Reiko.
“No. Please, no,” she said. She shook Lady Yanagisawa, slapped her cheeks, and yelled her name. But the woman remained inert as a cloth doll.
“We’re trapped in here with a corpse,” Keisho-in moaned. “Our spirits will be polluted by the contamination of death. Her ghost will haunt us!” She scurried to the far side of the room, knelt, closed her eyes, and began chanting prayers.
“Oh, Reiko-san, what are we going to do?” Midori wailed, her arms folded protectively across her stomach.
Reiko wanted to berate Keisho-in for scaring Midori, but instead she took a closer look at Lady Yanagisawa. Had the woman been injured during the attack? Could she be revived? Reiko opened Lady Yanagisawa’s robes. She examined the pale, flat-breasted torso and sturdy limbs, then checked Lady Yanagisawa’s back, but she found no cuts nor blood, and no bruises except where the ropes had bound her. And her body was still warm. Reiko put her ear against Lady Yanagisawa’s chest and heard a heartbeat, faint and slow.
“She’s alive,” Reiko said. Midori sighed in relief, and Keisho-in ceased praying; but Reiko’s concern persisted as she redressed Lady Yanagisawa. “She seems to be in a trance. I think she can’t bear what’s happened and she’s withdrawn from the world.”
“How lucky for her. She doesn’t have to suffer with the rest of us.” Keisho-in pouted. “But who needs her, anyway?”
Reiko had never imagined needing Lady Yanagisawa, never expected to feel anything but relief to have the woman incapacitated. But Lady Yanagisawa might have helped her cope with Keisho-in and Midori. Distraught, Reiko wondered what other misfortunes lay ahead.
There came a sudden rustling noise from the forest. Branches snapped; leaves crunched. Reiko, Midori, and Keisho-in froze alert, their breath caught.
“Someone’s coming,” Midori whispered.
A door scraped open far below them. Footsteps mounted the stairway. Reiko listened to the heavy, overlapping rhythm of the steps, which heralded several men. As the sound grew louder, she and her friends huddled on their knees together. Her heart thudded with dreadful anticipation. The footsteps scuffed to a halt outside the room. The women watched the door, speechless and transfixed. Iron rasped against iron as someone drew back bolts on the other side. Then the door slowly swung outward. In the crack appeared a sliver of a man’s face. Its eye appraised the women with sharp hostility. The door opened wider, and the man edged into the room, brandishing a long sword.
He was a tall samurai in his thirties, clad in an armor tunic that left his thickly muscled arms and legs bare. Fresh red scars marked his skin; black stubble shadowed his jaws and shaved crown. A scowl darkened his features. After him followed three more samurai, equally formidable, armed and dressed in similar fashion. An ominous quiet hushed the room as they approached the women, who gazed up at their captors like rabbits cornered by a hunter.
Lady Keisho-in scrambled to her feet and addressed the men. “It’s about time you honored us with your presence,” she said with haughty bravado, while Reiko and Midori stared, alarmed. “Whom do I have the privilege of addressing?”
“Be quiet and sit down!” the first samurai shouted, lifting his sword.
Keisho-in shrieked and dropped on all fours. The samurai, apparently the leader, pointed the sword at Reiko and said, “You. Crawl over there.”
Trembling, her chest constricted with anxiety, Reiko backed on hands and knees into a corner while the samurai advanced toward her. The tip of his sword gleamed close to her face.
“Don’t move,” he said, “or I’ll cut you.” Reiko surmised that he’d singled her out for special handling because she’d killed several of his comrades during the battle. Even now that she was unarmed, he didn’t trust her. She gazed up the steel length of the weapon at his narrowed eyes, flaring nostrils, and cruel, bow-shaped mouth. He shot a glance at his companions. “Guard the other ones.”
Two men moved, swords in hand, to stand near Keisho-in and Midori. The samurai who guarded Lady Yanagisawa nudged her with his foot; when she didn’t move, he relaxed.
“You can come in now,” the leader called to someone outside the room.
A young man entered. He was a brawny peasant with a soft, round face and the eyes of a boy anxious to please. He carried a lidded wooden pail in each hand.
“Here’s food and drink,” the leader announced.
The youth set the pails on the floor. Lady Keisho-in said, “At last!” She crawled to the pails and lifted the lids. Reiko saw that one pail contained water. The other held mochi-round, flattened cakes of rice-and pickled vegetables. Keisho-in grimaced in disgust.
“I can’t eat this garbage,” she said.
“You will, because it’s all you’re going to get,” the leader said.
Before Reiko could warn her against provoking the man, Keisho-in reared up on her knees. “I demand that you serve us a good hot meal,” she said. “And while you’re at it, take away those slop buckets and bring me some warm water for bathing.”
The leader gave a disdainful laugh. “You don’t give the orders here,” he said.
“Do you know who I am?” Keisho-in’s rheumy old eyes blazed. “I’m the shogun’s mother. I give orders
