Red Chrysanthemum

Sano played on Hoshina’s insecurity: “You can’t. If you do, you’ll be signing your own death order.”

Hoshina dangled between his preference for playing politics instead of taking direct action and his reluctance to appear weak in front of his men. Finally he said, “I’ll take my chances.”

“If you insist. You’ve been wanting to do me in for seven years. Here I am. Come get me.” If you dare, said the gaze Sano leveled on Hoshina.

Torn between his lust for Sano’s blood and his ingrained caution, Hoshina hesitated.

Torai cried, “Come on, come on, what are you waiting for?”

Sano knew that Hoshina didn’t want to be accountable for killing him. Hoshina looked furious because he knew Sano knew.

“If you don’t want to kill him, let me!” Torai begged.

Instead Hoshina said, “Quiet!” His mouth pursed as he formed and discarded ideas. He whispered to one of his men, who nodded and rode off in a hurry.

“What in hell are you doing?” Torai demanded, so frustrated that he forgot his subservience to Hoshina. “Get rid of him now, or you’ll be sorry.”

“Oh, I’m getting rid of him, never fear,” Hoshina said.

After some moments, a shout came from behind him and his troops. Hoshina beckoned down the alley to Sano and Hirata.

“Drop your swords and come over here.”

“If you want us, come get us,” Sano said.

Hooves clattered up behind him. Sharp steel pricked his nape above his armor tunic. Turning, he saw Captain Torai, seated on his horse, holding a long, pointed lance. “Do it,” Torai said.

Much as Sano hated to give up his weapon, he knew it was no use against all these troops. He and Hirata let their swords fall.

“Both of them,” Hoshina ordered.

Sano and Hirata threw down their short swords.

“Move,” Torai said.

As they rode forward, Hirata whispered to Sano, “What are they going to do to us?”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Sano said, calm even though primed for the worst.

“Stop,” Hoshina said when they neared his end of the alley. He and his troops backed up, spread into a circle in the street outside. Into it stepped four peasant men carrying a palanquin. Bearers for hire, they looked confused and frightened.

“Get inside the palanquin,” Hoshina said.

It looked to Sano like a slow ride to hell. When neither he nor Hirata obeyed, Hoshina told his troops, “Give them a little help.”

The troops dismounted, swarmed around Sano and Hirata, and dragged them off their horses. During a brief, savage scuffle, Sano kicked one man in the chin, punched another in the throat. Hirata butted his head against faces, kneed groins. By the time they were wrestled onto the muddy ground, three troops lay bleeding and unconscious. The others lashed Sano’s and Hirata’s wrists behind them, bound their ankles, then knotted the wrist and ankle cords together so their knees were bent and they couldn’t move. The troops tied their sashes around their mouths as gags and flung them into the palanquin.

As the door closed, Hoshina said, “Enjoy the ride. It’ll be your last.”

Reiko’s procession drew up outside the Mori estate. A horde of samurai blocked the open gate, shouting angrily, spilling into the street while rain poured down on them. Peering out the window of her palanquin, Reiko saw fists waving and tussles breaking out. Some of the men wore flying-crane crests on their armor. They were Sano’s troops.

Lieutenant Asukai dismounted, ran over to the crowd, and called, “Hey! What’s going on?”

A guard who wore the crest of the Mori clan shoved Asukai. “Get lost!”

One of Sano’s soldiers saw him and Reiko’s other guards. “Asukai-san. What are you fellows doing here?”

“We’ve come to see Lady Mori,” Asukai said.

“Forget it,” the soldier said as the Mori guards manhandled him and his comrades into the street. “Chamberlain Sano ordered us to guard the estate, but they’re trying to throw us out.”

“We don’t have to put up with the likes of you anymore!” shouted a Mori guard.

Reiko realized that Sano’s authority had weakened so much that the Mori retainers no longer needed to tolerate his occupying their domain. Clambering out of the palanquin, she shouted to Lieutenant Asukai: “We have to get in there!”

Someone in the crowd yelled, “Don’t let them drive us away from our duty to our master! Fight!”

Suddenly all Sano’s troops had their weapons in hand. Blades waving, they drove the Mori men in through the gate. Lieutenant Asukai beckoned to Reiko’s other bodyguards, told one to ride back to Sano’s estate and fetch more troops, then drew his sword. He grabbed Reiko by the hand. Let’s go!

Accompanied by her five remaining guards, they hurried after the brawling crowd and cleared the portals. Inside, men slashed, whirled, and collided in fights around the courtyard as Reiko and Lieutenant Asukai ran past them. Other Mori troops stampeded from within the estate. They charged at Reiko and Lieutenant Asukai. He slashed one down. Reiko’s guards assailed the others.

“Come on!” Asukai shouted to his comrades as he tugged Reiko toward the inner gate. But they were busy fighting; they couldn’t get past the Mori troops. He said to Reiko, “If we wait for them, we’ll get killed.”

“Then we won’t wait,” Reiko said, even though this was enemy territory, she was pregnant and vulnerable, and she needed more than Asukai to protect her. This was her one chance to clear herself. If she didn’t take it, she was dead anyway.

In the confusion of the battle, she and Asukai slipped through the inner gate. “Where to?” Asukai said, panting. He stared in surprise at the blood on his sword. Reiko realized that this was the first time he’d ever killed.

“The women’s quarters,” she said. “This way.”

Running through gardens, they hid behind trees and pavilions to avoid troops rushing to join the battle. They reached the wing of the mansion where the women lived. Lieutenant Asukai shoved open the doors. He and Reiko stepped into Lady Mori’s chamber, which was brightly lit with lanterns, hot and close. A familiar scene greeted Reiko.

Lady Mori sat with her ladies-in-waiting, a large piece of embroidery spread on the floor between them. The gray-haired maid knelt beside Lady Mori, holding a tray that contained scissors, needles, and skeins of colored thread. The ladies-in-waiting gasped at the two wet, bedraggled intruders who’d burst in on them. Lady Mori’s hands froze on her embroidery. The maid paused while offering the tray to Lady Mori. Their expressions went blank as they stared at Reiko. For a moment the only sounds were the women’s quickened breathing, the distant battle noises, and a murmur of thunder.

“Hello, Lady Mori,” Reiko said. “I can tell you never expected to see me again.”

Lady Mori leaned back as Reiko took a step toward her. Her heavy cheeks sagged and her full lips parted in shock. “What-” She groped for words. “How dare you come here? After what you did to my husband!”

“You mean after what you did,” Reiko said. On the way to the estate, she’d figured out the gist of what must have happened. Now she wanted the whole story. “I have some business to settle with you. And with your maid.” She turned to the woman. “Hello, Ukon.”

“Oh, so you’ve finally recognized me,” Ukon said in the brassy, insolent voice that Reiko now remembered hearing in the Court of Justice.

“I’m sorry it took me all this time,” Reiko said, “but you’ve changed since your son’s trial.”

Ukon’s hair had been black then, her complexion smooth for a woman in her late forties, her figure plump and fashionably dressed. Now she wore the faded indigo uniform of a servant. Her hair was solid gray; deep wrinkles etched her face. She was gaunt, as though her flesh had melted from the bones and muscles beneath the skin.

“Having a son put to death for a crime he didn’t commit will do that to you,” Ukon said. Her eyes gleamed with the hatred she’d kept hidden during Reiko’s past visits. She set down her tray of scissors and thread, as if to free her hands for a battle.

“He was guilty. Believing he was innocent is something that only his loyal, devoted mother could do,” Reiko said.