condolences?”
A breath inflated Yanagisawa’s chest. Although his mild expression didn’t change, Sano sensed a swell of emotions within him. Sano braced himself, aware that if a man he blamed for his child’s death should dare to express sympathy, he would explode into violent rage.
“You may.” Not a sign of rancor did Yanagisawa display. “I gratefully accept.”
Sano was so unbalanced by Yanagisawa’s reaction that he had to grope for something else to say. “Yoritomo was a good man. His death was a tragedy.”
“Yes,” Yanagisawa said. “Thank you.”
Perhaps grief had reformed Yanagisawa from an evil schemer into a decent human being. Sano had seen stranger things happen. He came out with a speech that his conscience needled him to make.
“I’m sorry for my part in the trouble that cost Yoritomo his life.” But Sano couldn’t help thinking that it had been Yoritomo’s own actions that had ultimately gotten him killed. He’d gone over and over the events leading up to the scene, and he always concluded that if he had it to do again, given the same facts that had been available to him then, he would have done everything the same. “I never meant for Yoritomo to be harmed. If I could change the past and bring him back, I would.” But Sano wasn’t sorry not to have Yoritomo plotting against him. Even though he meant every word of his speech, it felt false.
Yanagisawa nodded as if he accepted Sano’s words at face value. “Why don’t we just let bygones be bygones. You have more important things to think about. And so have I.”
He smiled. His eyes flashed with the old cunning and menace.
Sano’s hackles rose.
28
“What did Sano- san say?” Midori asked, entering the storehouse where Hirata sat.
Hirata looked up at his wife. Sick with shame about what had happened between him and Sano, he didn’t want to worry her. She had enough problems, caring for the family under post-earthquake conditions. “Nothing serious. He’s giving me a leave of absence.”
Midori’s eyes flared with alarm; she understood that the leave was a punishment, not a holiday. “Why? What did you do?”
“Why are you always in such a hurry to assume I did something bad?” Hirata vented his anger at himself on her.
“Why do you always criticize me when I’m right and we both know it?” Midori put her hands on her hips. She was no traditional wife who would bow to her husband’s authority or let him divert her from a topic he didn’t want to discuss. “Tell me what you did!”
Hirata didn’t like giving in to her, but it wasn’t fair to keep her in the dark. If things kept going the way they were, she would share the consequences. “Sano- san gave me a job to do. I let him down.” It made Hirata feel as low and dirty as a worm. Samurai had committed ritual suicide for similar offenses. Perhaps he should, too. That would get him out of the secret society, but it would create other, disastrous problems.
Midori opened her mouth. She looked from side to side, caught between anger and confusion and unable to decide which to express. “Why didn’t you do what he told you to?” She studied Hirata’s face. “Don’t tell me-I can guess. It was those friends of yours, wasn’t it? Yes! I knew it!”
“You carry on our conversations so well by yourself, why do you need me to say anything?” Hirata snapped.
“I knew they were trouble the first time I laid eyes on them. Where did you go last night? What happened?”
“I can’t tell you,” Hirata said between clenched teeth. “You know that.”
“I know that you’ve changed since you met those three. You’re secretive and cross all the time. I don’t like it. And neither does Sano- san, obviously.” Fear quenched her anger. Her hand went to her throat, and she said in a hushed voice, “What happens next? Sano- san throws you out and you become a r o nin?”
“No. He wouldn’t,” Hirata lied.
Midori bent and clutched his arm. “Whatever you’re up to with those men, you have to stop it! Before you ruin us!”
Their hold over him shackled Hirata like iron chains. “I can’t.”
“Why not? Are you so infatuated with them that you’ll let them make you lose everything?” Midori’s anger resurged. “Maybe you don’t care about yourself, but what about me and our children? How are we supposed to live when we’re thrown out in the streets? Don’t you care about us anymore?”
“That’s not it,” Hirata protested.
“Then what is it? Why must you continue going along with those men?”
The secrets he’d been keeping filled Hirata like pus in a boil. Their volume had swelled to the bursting point. Hirata had to let something out. “Unless I do, they’ll kill Sano- san.”
Midori crumpled as if he’d struck her behind the knees. “Oh.” She understood that his master’s murder was a calamity that a samurai must do everything in his power to avert. “Well, can’t you protect Sano- san?”
“No.” Hirata heard the flatness of defeat in his voice. “They’re stronger than I am.”
Midori frowned in disbelief. “You’re the best fighter in Edo.”
“I’m only the one who’s won the tournaments and duels. Tahara, Kitano, and Deguchi have kept their powers to themselves-so far.”
“Tell Sano- san. Surround him with guards,” Midori suggested. “Those men won’t be able to get close enough to touch him.”
“Yes, they will.” As Hirata told her about the prayer tag that Tahara had planted on Sano, he watched horror erase her disbelief. “I can’t keep him safe. Except by doing what they want me to do.”
“What do they want you to do?”
“I can’t tell you. I’ve already said too much.” Hirata knew the men would kill whoever learned more about their business than they liked, including women and children. “It’s too dangerous for you to know.”
Midori wrung her hands. “What’s going to happen to us?”
“Nothing, I promise,” Hirata said with too hearty confidence. “Everything will be fine.” But first he must do the ghost’s bidding.
After Midori left him to look after the children, who were playing outside, Hirata glumly contemplated the message branded on his arm. He couldn’t just walk up to Lord Ienobu and say, “Come to the shogun’s garden with me.” Ienobu would want to know why, or refuse outright. Hirata supposed he could use his mystical powers to make Ienobu follow him as mindlessly as a sleepwalker. But they might run into someone who would notice that something was odd about Ienobu and accuse Hirata of casting an evil spell over him. Hirata especially didn’t want Sano to see him and wonder what he was doing. He decided against sneaking up behind Ienobu, hitting him on the head, knocking him unconscious, putting his body in a sack, and dumping him in the garden at the designated hour. In addition to the risk of being caught, he might hurt Ienobu. Think! he exhorted himself. You haven’t much time left!
Hirata mulled over his store of information about Lord Ienobu, whom he didn’t personally know. He’d heard the man was ambitious, sneaky, selfish, and had his eye on the dictatorship. That was all. It was enough.
Rummaging in the household clutter, Hirata found writing supplies and a blank sheet of paper. He prepared ink, dipped a brush, and wrote in square, blocky characters that disguised his calligraphy: Go to the shogun’s garden at the hour of the cock tomorrow, and you will learn something to your advantage. Hirata rolled the letter without signing it and put it in a bamboo scroll container. Surely Ienobu wouldn’t be able to ignore an anonymous tip. All Hirata had to do was get the letter into Ienobu’s hands.
Then he would continue his investigation into Tahara, Kitano, and Deguchi.
“You’re back already?” Reiko’s grandmother said, standing outside her tent. “Did you have a nice visit with Lady Ogyu?”
Reiko climbed out of her palanquin. “Not especially.”
