Oigimi said, “My mother is innocent. Leave her alone.”
“Daughter, mind your manners. You’ll offend the honorable chamberlain,” Lady Ateki pleaded.
“I don’t care. I’m not afraid of him,” Oigimi said. “There’s nothing he can do to me that’s worse than what’s already happened.”
She flung off her drape. Her neck was corrugated with scars, her scalp crusty and bald on the burned side. Her dead eye stared blankly. She pushed up her left sleeve to reveal the mottled red stump of her arm. Sano’s repugnance vied with pity. Oigimi had nothing to lose except her life, which must be a terrible burden.
“You’ll never be able to prove we’re guilty,” she said. Her good eye sparked with fury and triumph. “If you bring us before the shogun and accuse us, we’ll testify against your mother. The shogun and Lord Matsudaira can decide who’s telling the truth. We’re willing to take a chance. Are you?”
At Sano’s estate, Reiko and Akiko played ball with Midori, her children, and Lieutenant Asukai in the garden outside the private chambers. Reiko threw the soft cloth ball to little Tatsuo. She noticed that Lieutenant Asukai was good with the children; he gently tossed them the ball, and when they threw it with all their might only to have it land near their feet, he gallantly dashed forward, retrieved it, and backed up for another throw. Although Reiko smiled and cheered with everyone else, her mind dwelled in dark realms.
She was glad she hadn’t told Sano about her conversation with his mother. He had enough to worry about already. For him to know that Reiko believed his mother to be guilty would do him no good. And Reiko had no basis for her judgment except her intuition, no proof that Sano would accept. Although Reiko was upset that her mother- in-law was in jail, she couldn’t help feeling relieved to have Etsuko out of the house. She thought jail was exactly where Etsuko belonged. Yet Reiko felt no true satisfaction. Etsuko’s imprisonment was another step toward disaster for the whole family and a sign that Sano couldn’t save them. The fearful tension that had plagued Reiko during the past few days mounted higher.
Sudden loud, agonized screams shattered the peace. Reiko froze. The ball she’d just caught fell from her hands. Her heart stopped in terror, then began to race.
“What was that?” Midori said, looking toward the house, from which the noise had come.
An explanation occurred to Reiko. She rushed into the house, followed by Lieutenant Asukai and the others. They ran down the corridor to her chamber. Inside, the cabinet built into the wall was open. An armor-clad samurai stood in front of the cabinet, one arm thrust into it, the other beating wildly at the air while he screamed and his body jerked. He turned, his face ferocious with pain.
“Captain Ogyu!” Reiko said as she recognized him. He was the commanding officer of the squadron that protected her family’s quarters.
“You’re the spy!” Lieutenant Asukai exclaimed in disbelief and shock.
“No!” Ogyu roared.
But the truth was obvious. Ogyu had opened the secret compartment in which Reiko had hidden the book that named Sano’s “spies.” When Sano and his family had first moved into the estate, Masahiro had found the compartment, filled with a stash of gold coins that Yanagisawa had left behind when he’d been exiled. Now the book lay inside the compartment. Captain Ogyu’s fingers were touching the black silk cover. His hand was immobilized by a dagger stuck through its back, into the compartment’s wooden base. When he’d opened the compartment he’d triggered the trap, a hidden spring that had driven the dagger into his hand.
Reiko was so astounded by how well her plan had worked that all she could do was stand silent, her hand over her mouth. Midori took one look at the captive, whose blood welled around the dagger and spilled on the floor, and hustled the children away. “Wait!” Masahiro cried. “I want to see!”
Captain Ogyu stammered, “I was just-I thought-”
“You thought the book was a list of spies,” Lieutenant Asukai said. “You just wanted to steal it for Lord Matsudaira. Well, the book is a fake, this is a trap, and you fell for it.” He seized Ogyu by his topknot and banged his head against the cabinet for good measure. “Now we’ve caught you dead to rights.”
Captain Ogyu shouted curses. With his free hand he wrenched at the dagger’s handle. He begged, “Get it out of me! Let me loose!”
“Oh, we will,” Asukai said. “But don’t be in such a hurry. What’s going to happen to you next will hurt a lot worse.”
17
When Sano and his entourage arrived back at Edo Castle, a sentry at the main gate said, “General Isogai wants to see you.”
General Isogai was the supreme commander of the Tokugawa army. He owned the loyalty of thousands of troops, and he’d pledged their military support to Sano. No matter that Sano had important things to do, he couldn’t brush off his chief ally.
He found General Isogai at the Tokugawa army’s central headquarters, located in a turret that rose up from a wall within Edo Castle, high on its hill. The turret, a square structure faced with white plaster, was crowned with tile roofs that protruded above each of its three stories. General Isogai had an office at the top. Inside, swords, spears, and guns hung in racks on the walls, alongside maps of Japan on which army garrisons and main roads were marked. General Isogai paced the floor like a soldier in a drill. He had a squat, heavily muscled figure and the appearance of no neck between his thick shoulders and his ovoid head.
“Greetings, Sano-san,” he said in a voice loud enough to carry across a battlefield.
Sano returned the greeting; they exchanged bows. He noted that General Isogai didn’t invite him to sit or offer him a drink. “Why did you want to see me?”
General Isogai’s thick lips smiled; his eyes glinted with wits and good cheer. “Always ready to get right down to business, aren’t you? No wasting time. That’s what I always liked about you.”
Sano noticed that General Isogai had spoken in the past tense. “I suppose you’ve heard that my mother is in Edo Jail for murder and I’m three days away from execution for treason.”
“Everyone’s heard.” General Isogai’s expression sobered. “The news is halfway across the country by now.”
“Somehow I don’t think you called me here to sympathize with me,” Sano said in a tone that prompted the other man to state his business.
“I do offer my sympathy,” General Isogai said, feigning hurt. “Rotten luck for you and your mother. Wouldn’t wish that on my own mother, may she rest in peace. I’m not totally without a heart.”
“But?”
“But there’s something I have to tell you.” General Isogai spoke with the air of a judge delivering a death sentence: “I can’t support you any longer.”
Although Sano had expected as much, he felt as if the loss of General Isogai and the Tokugawa army had knocked his legs out from under him. He couldn’t hide his bitterness as he said, “You were among the men who pushed me to challenge Lord Matsudaira. You led me to believe you’d stand by me. And now you back out at the first sign of trouble.”
General Isogai bristled at Sano’s hint that he was a quitter and a coward. “So I encouraged you. It was your decision, and you were aware of the risks. You know that the wind can change at any moment; alliances aren’t necessarily forever. Any man who doesn’t is a fool.”
“Better a fool than a rat,” Sano said evenly.
General Isogai grinned and spread his hands to show that the offense intended hadn’t been taken. “Rats are smart. They know to leave a sinking ship. If I’m a rat, I’m not the only one. Uemori Yoichi and Ohgami Kaoru asked me to convey a message to you.” Those men were Sano’s allies on the Council of Elders, Japan’s chief governing body. “They can no longer afford to be associated with you, either.”
This was how it felt to be caught in a tornado, fighting to stand upright while one’s house and belongings were sucked away by the wind. But Sano didn’t protest or beg; that would display weakness, and it was no use.
“Then there’s nothing more to say.” Sano leveled a cold gaze on General Isogai and started toward the door.
