Shinju

Realizing he couldn’t cover the whole quarter with any speed, Sano began stopping people he met. He shouted, “Have you seen- ” and then described the shogun’s party the way he imagined it. The answers he got were varied-”

“No. Yes. Maybe. I don’t know!” from a drunken merchant.

“Don’t be so serious. Come have a drink!” from some rowdy young samurai.

– and largely useless.

Then a pleasure house doorman said, “An old-fashioned lady, you say? Why are you looking for her, when there are so many pretty modern girls here?”

The mention of girls and the sight of the parading yujo reminded Sano of Wisteria. She’d helped him once; maybe she would again. She must have many friends in Yoshiwara who could join in the search, and enough samurai admirers to stand against Lord Niu’s men. He started toward the Garden of the Heavenly Palace. Then he spotted another procession of yujo gathered outside a teahouse. Joy and concern flooded him in equal measures as his gaze found the woman at the end.

Except for her distinctive round eyes, he wouldn’t have recognized Wisteria. Much thinner and paler, she wore a plain cotton kimono. Beside her swayed a very drunk man. As Sano watched, he flung an arm around Wisteria, hand groping for her breast. Wisteria’s face was frozen in a grimace that barely resembled a smile.

Sano had no time to wonder what had caused the high-ranking beauty to sink to such depths. “Lady Wisteria!” he called. Somehow he reached her side without trampling anyone. He called her name again.

“Wisteria!” he shouted, lifting his mask for a moment so she could see his face. “Wisteria, do you remember me?”

Her false smile vanished. “You!” she shouted, eyes ablaze with hatred. “I helped you. I gave myself to you. And look what’s become of me!”

Her angry gesture encompassed her drab, haggard appearance, her oafish customer, her place at the end of the line. Sano’s heart contracted. He had, he recalled now, reported their conversation to Magistrate Ogyu. Ogyu must have ordered her demoted to low-class prostitute and social nonentity so that no one would pay attention to any stories she might tell about Noriyoshi’s murder. Another life ruined by his actions. But he couldn’t let guilt or pity stop him from doing what he must.

“Lady Wisteria, forgive me. I need your help again. I have to find-”

“Stay away from me!” she shrilled. “You’ve done enough harm already!”

Shaking free of her customer, she turned and fled. Her small size let her squeeze through narrow openings in the crowd as Sano could not. He had no choice but to let her go.

He turned away hastily when he saw another doshin pushing through the crowd toward him. He dismounted and continued down the street, leading the horse. From ground level, he could no longer look down over the crowds, but his new vantage point hid him from his pursuers and let him peer into doorways and open windows. In the teahouses and restaurants he saw many tall, heavy women that had to be men in disguise, but no one matching the shogun’s description.

He rounded a corner into a street barely wide enough for four men to walk side by side. The quarter’s outer wall blocked its far end. Brilliant lanterns, strung across the street between the roofs of the houses, danced overhead. The dense crowd brought Sano to an abrupt halt. He stood on his toes and craned his neck. All around him, men celebrated with increasing abandon as the festivities neared their peak. Caged yujo cried out encouragements and invitations. The ground under Sano’s feet was slippery with sour-smelling mud. Then he saw a sleek dark head that reached above the others, about thirty paces away. A momentary gap in the crowd gave him a glimpse of a large, homely white face and long, flowing hair. The man-woman smiled and waved to someone. His billowy gold sleeve fell back to reveal layered kimonos underneath: red, green, blue, white.

At the same time as Sano recognized Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, the crowd pressed against him. Three samurai, masked but in ordinary clothes, were moving his way, clearing a path ahead of the shogun. Six more bodyguards, three mounted and three on foot, covered their master’s back and sides. Sano pushed at the bodies that stood between him and the middle of the street. He had to intercept the shogun before he disappeared into the crowd.

“Stop pushing!” someone yelled, shoving Sano back against a railing.

“Out of the way, out of the way,” called the shogun’s bodyguards.

Sano knotted his horse’s reins around the railing. Then he wedged himself between two men. The first bodyguard neared him. An elbow knocked his mask askew, and as he righted it, he saw the bodyguard pause and turn his head in response to a call.

A doshin appeared beside the guard. They began a conversation that the other two front-runners joined, shouting in one another’s ears because of the crowd noise. Sano couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he could guess. The doshin was asking or telling them about a certain dangerous fugitive.

Sano continued to work his way forward. At whatever risk to himself, he must use this opportunity to warn the shogun. The Conspiracy of Twenty-One might make their move at any instant.

Just then, a distant boom sounded. A hush fell over the crowd; men paused in the act of speaking, drinking, dancing, walking. Heads lifted in listening anticipation, among them those of the shogun and his party. Another boom followed, then another. Suddenly the night came alive with the clamor of a million gongs and bells, some high-pitched and sweet, others deep and sonorous. A cheer swept the quarter. It was midnight, and the priests in temples all over Edo had begun to exorcise the evil of the Old Year and ring in the good of the New. The peals and booms echoed off the distant hills and rocked the ground. The very air shuddered.

Sano listened with the rest of the crowd, momentarily spellbound as they were by the awe-inspiring music. Then, on the high right edge of his field of vision, he saw a movement. He turned.

A samurai dressed in dark robes, leggings, and mask crept along a roof. As Sano watched, the man knelt and took an arrow from the quiver that hung from his shoulder. He fitted the arrow to his bow and drew back on the string, aiming straight at the shogun.

“Look out, Your Excellency!” Sano shouted, pointing. “There. On the roof!”

His voice was lost in the noise of the bells and gongs. Although he couldn’t even hear himself, he kept shouting.

“Your Excellency!”

No one standing farther than three steps away could see him, either. Sano plunged toward his horse, untied the reins, and mounted. He drove the animal against the massed bodies. Standing in the stirrups, he waved and shouted. No one moved. They couldn’t. Still the bells and gongs tolled. The shogun kept his rapt gaze on the sky. Now Sano saw with increasing panic that two more archers had taken up positions on other roofs.

“You! Up there! Stop!” he yelled.

His cry coincided with an instant’s lull between peals. Two of the archers kept eyes and bows trained on their target, but the nearest turned toward him. No sooner had Sano guessed his intent than the archer swung his bow around and set free the arrow. It flew at Sano in a blur of speed. He had barely time for a quick intake of breath, and none to dodge. Then his horse screamed, rearing under him. He saw the arrow sticking out of its neck.

Blood gushed around the shaft in rhythmic spurts. Sano cried out, trying to steady the squealing, thrashing beast. But the horse lurched and started to fall sideways. As Sano fell with it, he saw the archers on the roof release their arrows. The shogun disappeared as if jerked to the ground from below.

Sudden mass hysteria threw the street into a writhing turmoil. People shoved and kicked, trying to reach safety. Their screams rose over the noise of the bells. Sano landed on bodies already knocked to the ground by his horse’s wild convulsions. Feet trampled his chest. He managed to fight his way out from under someone who fell across him, only to receive a jarring kick to his chin. He regained his footing just in time to see two of the shogun’s bodyguards pull themselves onto a roof and take up pursuit of the fleeing archers. Others closed protectively around their fallen master, while the rest began fending off the crowds that surrounded them. Dread and a horrible sense of failure gripped Sano. Was the shogun dead?

“Clear the street!” the bodyguards shouted. “Go on, move! Everybody. Now!”

The doshin who’d approached them earlier reappeared, wielding his jitte as his two assistants swung their clubs. The crowd stampeded toward Naka-no-cho. Shouts and screams filled Sano’s ears: “What is it? What happened? Help!”