“Nothing except good-bye,” General Isogai said, regretful yet pragmatic. “And good luck.”
When Sano came out of army headquarters, Hirata and the detectives were waiting for him. “What did General Isogai want?” Hirata asked.
Sano told them. Marume said, “That bastard!”
“It’s a good thing you found out before he and his fellow traitors could desert you on the battlefield,” Hirata said.
“You’re better off without them,” Fukida agreed.
But they knew, as did Sano, that he’d just lost more than half his faction. And Sano had even more pressing concerns. “Three days is long enough to lose the rest of my allies, but I don’t have time to worry about that now. Three days in Edo Jail could be the death of my mother even if I exonerate her. I’d better go there and make sure she’s all right.”
As he and his men mounted their horses on the path that ran along the top of the castle wall below the covered corridors, a patrol guard strolled toward them. The guard saw Sano, paused, and said, “Excuse me, Honorable Chamberlain. I’ve just heard there’s trouble at your estate.”
Sano, Hirata, and the detectives rushed home. Leaping off his mount at the gate, Sano called to the sentries, “What happened?”
“Lord Matsudaira’s spy has been caught,” said one of the men.
Marume and Fukida exclaimed in surprise. The sentries opened the gate, and as Sano rushed in it, he asked, “Was anyone hurt?” His heart filled with anxiety about Reiko and the children.
The guard captain on duty met Sano in the courtyard. “Your family is safe,” he said, running alongside Sano, Hirata, and the detectives. “The situation’s under control.”
He led them inside the mansion, to the private quarters. They arrived to see a group of soldiers leading out a man Sano recognized as Captain Ogyu. Ogyu’s right hand was wrapped in a bloodstained bandage. When the soldiers stopped him in front of Sano, he hung his head rather than meet Sano’s eyes. Huddled against a wall nearby were Lieutenant Asukai and Reiko. They looked relieved and triumphant.
Sano hastened to his wife. “What’s going on here?”
While Reiko explained, Sano shook his head in astonishment. “Well,” he said, “it was clever of you to put that trap to such good use.” He turned to Captain Ogyu and demanded, “What have you to say for yourself?”
Ogyu remained sullenly quiet.
“Are you all right?” Sano asked Reiko.
She seemed to wilt. “Yes,” she said with a smile as fleeting as bright. Her body trembled, as if she’d only now just realized that the enemy in their midst could have done worse than try to steal information. Sano saw that the exposure of the spy, so soon after the ambush, had profoundly upset her. Her valiant courage was eroding. Her eyes shone with belated terror as well as relief that the enemy was captured, the danger averted.
“I’d better see to the children.” As she hurried away, she swiped her hand across her eyes.
Sano glanced at Captain Ogyu, then said to his troops, “Get this piece of filth out of here and put him to death.” He didn’t like to use capital punishment, but he would make an exception in this case. Beckoning Hirata and the detectives, he strode out of the courtyard. “Too bad for Lord Matsudaira that his spy is finished. He’s lost this round.”
As Sano, Hirata, and the detectives mounted their horses outside the gate, Hana came running from the estate. “What’s happened to your mother?” she cried.
Sano had forgotten about Hana. He owed her an explanation that he couldn’t just yell over his shoulder as he rode off. “Wait,” he told his men.
He jumped off his horse and led Hana into the estate, to the grounds that fronted the mansion. These were empty except for a few gardeners working. Sano told Hana how the tutor had incriminated his mother in front of the shogun.
“So Egen turned on her.” Distraught but not surprised, Hana said to herself, “I knew nothing good would come of that.”
“Come of what?” Sano said.
“Nothing,” Hana said quickly. “Did the shogun believe Egen?”
“Unfortunately, yes. He pronounced my mother guilty.”
“He did?” Hana stamped her feet. “That stupid idiot!”
Sano blinked. This was the first time he’d ever heard anyone say aloud what many thought of their lord. Hana was angry enough to insult the shogun even though it was punishable by death if anyone reported her.
“Where is your mother?” Hana demanded.
“She’s been taken to Edo Jail,” Sano said.
As he explained that she’d been imprisoned to await execution, the terrible reality of it sank in. A lump filled his throat.
“No!” Hana was equally devastated. “You’ve got to get her out!”
“I’m trying.” Now Sano saw a chance to break through the barrier of Hana’s evasions. “But I need your help.”
“I can’t bear to think of her in that place,” Hana fretted, pacing in a circle like a trapped mouse. “She must be so frightened. I’ll do anything. Just tell me what!”
“Tell me what happened during the Great Fire.”
Hana faltered to a stop. “I did.”
“We both know better. And we can’t waste any more time on games. My mother’s in jail, I have three days to prove she’s innocent, and if I don’t, she’ll die.” Vexed that Hana kept putting him off, Sano said, “Now talk!”
“It won’t help your mother.”
“Maybe you’re wrong. And my inquiries have come to a dead end. You, and she, are all I have.”
“All right.” Defeated, Hana took a deep breath, then said, “The day the Great Fire started, your mother and I packed our things to go across the river. Then we learned that Tadatoshi was missing. We went out to look for him.”
“I’ve already heard that,” Sano said, warning Hana not to repeat her lies.
“I’m getting to the part you haven’t heard,” she snapped. “I turned my back on your mother-just for an instant. And she was gone.” Hana’s pupils dilated with the panic she must have felt. “I forgot Tadatoshi. It was Etsuko that I cared about, who was out in the city while the fire was burning, that I had to find. I ran through the streets, calling her name-until I saw the fire coming.”
Her eyes shone as if with the reflections of the flames in her memory. “People came running away from it toward me. I was carried along with them. We tumbled down the bank of a canal and into the water. I was pushed under it. All around me people were kicking and screaming, trying to swim.” Hana flailed her arms. “I almost drowned. But the water saved my life. The fire leaped across the canal. It passed right over my head to the other side, but I wasn’t hurt at all.”
Even now, forty-three years later, Hana was clearly awed by the miracle. “It was dark when I climbed out of the canal. It was so cold I almost froze.” She bent a vindictive yet sad gaze on Sano. “I didn’t find Etsuko until eight days later.”
Sano’s heart plummeted because Hana had retracted his mother’s alibi for the time of the Great Fire, when Tadatoshi had probably met his death.
“I wandered the city, looking for her,” Hana continued. “I asked everyone I met whether they’d seen her. By the time the bakufu put up the tents, I was so exhausted that I couldn’t go on. I gave Etsuko up for dead. I lay down in a tent with strangers and I grieved… until the morning I awakened to hear her calling my name. At first I thought I was dreaming. Then I looked outside the tent, and I saw Etsuko running toward me.” Hana’s face wore the expression of a person beholding a divine vision. “She was alive!”
Even though Sano was upset to learn that his mother had a period of time unaccounted for, he recognized his good luck. How close he’d come to never being born! He owed his existence to whatever miracle had saved his mother from becoming one of the fire’s hundred thousand victims.
“People I’d asked about her had directed her to me.” Pantomiming an embrace, Hana said, “I hugged her. We both cried. We were so glad to see each other! But then I noticed the blood.”
Sano’s sense of good fortune evaporated. “What blood?”
“The blood all over her clothes.” Hana stroked her own sleeves, as if touching phantom stains. “I thought
