The critical hours ahead represented a bridge between her present life of suffering and a future blessed with happiness. Lady Yanagisawa experienced a dizzy, whirling sensation, as if the winds of change buffeted her body. Strange lights and shadows flickered across her vision, like the sun’s rays piercing storm clouds.
“You come, too, Mama?” Kikuko said.
“No, dearest,” Lady Yanagisawa said, because she must appear innocent of what happened at the scene where her plans would culminate.
“Why not?”
“I can’t,” Lady Yanagisawa said. “Someday I’ll explain.”
Someday soon, Kikuko would be able to understand and appreciate what her mother had done for her. Now Lady Yanagisawa said, “Rumi-sanwill take you,” and gestured toward the elderly maid who waited in the doorway. She placed her hands on Kikuko’s shoulders and gazed into her daughter’s face. “Do you remember all that I told you?”
“Remember,” Kikuko said, nodding solemnly.
“Do you know what you’re supposed to do?”
Kikuko nodded again. Lady Yanagisawa had labored hard to instruct the girl; they’d play-acted everything together until Kikuko performed perfectly. But she could only hope that Kikuko would follow her directions when the time came.
“Go, then,” Lady Yanagisawa said. She gave Kikuko a fierce hug as the winds of destiny howled louder and stronger. Through the storm clouds whirling in Lady Yanagisawa’s mind shone a vision of her husband. He smiled upon her with the tenderness she craved; he reached out his hand, beckoning her to cross the bridge she’d built to join her to him.
Lady Yanagisawa released Kikuko and rose. “Be a good girl.”
Kikuko trotted off with the maid. Lady Yanagisawa stood alone. Having placed her fate in her daughter’s hands, all she could do was wait.
Along the Sumida River rose a long line of warehouses, high buildings with whitewashed plaster walls. Signs bore the owners’ names; the Tokugawa crest marked the bakufu’s rice repositories. Alleys between the buildings led to the river, where docks extended into the choppy, turbid water. On the inland side, porters and oxcarts carried goods along a boulevard that paralleled the river, and up streets through neighborhoods that clung to the gradually ascending terrain.
Sano, Hirata, and their fifty troops rode down a street bordered by shops, toward the river. They halted their mounts some distance above the boulevard.
“There’s the warehouse that Hoshina mentioned,” Sano said.
“The one with no activity,” Hirata observed.
Its wide plank door was closed; wooden shutters covered the windows on both stories. Sano saw workers pass in and out of the other buildings, but the warehouse that Hoshina had identified as belonging to the Mori gang seemed abandoned.
“Let’s hope that Lightning is hiding inside,” Sano said.
Anticipation grew in him as he led his troops across the boulevard and they all dismounted outside the warehouse. He heard men shouting nearby, the thump of loads against the floors of adjacent buildings, and hammering at a distant construction site; but the Mori warehouse was silent. Sano divided the fifty detectives between himself and Hirata. The two groups filed down the alleys on each side of the building. At its rear they found another closed door, and more shuttered windows overlooking a yard that sloped toward a deserted dock. Sano assigned ten detectives to stand guard behind the building, then led his other men around to the front door.
Sano knocked loudly on the weathered planks, and waited. Nothing stirred inside the building; yet he sensed a human presence, like a warm, animate smell, beyond the door.
“Open up,” he called, knocking again.
Still no response. Sano tried the door, but it was fastened securely inside. He gestured to three of his strongest detectives. “Break it down.
While Sano, Hirata, and the others stood back, the three men heaved their shoulders against the door. The crash shuddered the planks. Repeated blows strained the hinges; wood splintered with small, then large cracks. Suddenly, the air hissed behind Sano. Recognizing the sound, he ducked in alarm. He heard a thunk, looked down, and saw an arrow stuck in the ground near his feet. “Watch out!” he said. “They’re shooting at us.”
Glancing up in the direction from which the arrow had come, he saw that the warehouse’s three second-floor windows had opened. Out of every one leaned a samurai, each armed with a bow. They fired volleys at Sano and his troops.
“Retreat! Fire back!” Sano shouted to his detectives.
They scattered, regrouping across the boulevard. The archers among them shot at the samurai in the warehouse windows, who returned fire. Pedestrians screamed in fright. An arrow struck the leg of a porter; dropping his load, he crawled away. Workers from nearby warehouses hurried to see the commotion.
“Go inside!” Sano yelled, waving at them.
More arrows flew; people took cover. In an instant, the area was deserted, except for Sano, his troops, and their opponents. He felt an arrow ricochet off his armor tunic, saw a detective take an arrow in the neck and fall, spurting blood. Yet even as the battle horrified him, he experienced a thrill of elation because he’d found the Mori gang.
“We’re going in after Lightning,” Sano told Hirata.
Crouching, they and a squadron of detectives zigzagged across the boulevard, swords in hand, while arrows whistled over their heads. One of the Mori gang shrieked, toppled from a window, and landed with a thud, killed by an arrow through his stomach. Men popped up through skylights and hurled rocks down on Sano and his men.
Sano flung up his free arm to shield himself, and a stone struck pain into his elbow. Looking up, he saw a Mori gangster take an arrow in the chest, skid down the roof, and plummet to the ground. A detective near Sano went down under a hail of rocks. As Sano, Hirata, and the others neared the door, a loud male voice called, “Stop right there!”
Halting, Sano looked up and saw a man framed in the window above the door. He was broad and muscular, with a face whose angles and hard planes appeared carved from stone. Coarse hair had tumbled out of his topknot, over brows slanted in a scowl. His eyes darted in speedy, unnatural flashes.
Recognition struck Sano. “Hold your fire,” he called to his men. The torrent of arrows ceased. Exhilaration overwhelmed him, for here was the man he believed had killed Lord Mitsuyoshi and Wisteria, and represented his salvation.
“Lightning,” he said.
“Sosakan-sama,” the gangster said in a harsh, mocking voice. “You’ve found me.”
“Surrender,” Sano ordered. His archers trained their bows on Lightning. “Come out.”
Lightning sneered. He pulled a small human figure against him. The person had the shaved crown and topknot of a samurai, and wore a drab indigo robe; yet her delicate face belied the masculine trappings. Sano gazed dumbstruck into round, lovely eyes he’d once admired, that were now glazed with terror.
It was Lady Wisteria.
“Here’s somebody you’ve been looking for,” Lightning said to Sano. “Either you let me go, or I’ll kill her.”
33
Sano stared up at Lightning and Wisteria in shock as thoughts raced through his mind.
Wisteria was alive after all. She still wore the disguise in which she’d escaped from Yoshiwara with the Mori gang.
He’d located his murder suspect, but the presence of Wisteria complicated Lightning’s arrest.
