The Ronin’s Mistress

mind giving up his position to Sano, because he knew how lucky he was.

Fourteen years ago, he’d been a lowly police patrol officer who couldn’t afford to marry. Then he’d met Sano, who’d made him his chief retainer. He owed his career to Sano. And Sano owed his life to Hirata, who’d stopped an attack on Sano and been wounded so severely that he’d almost died. But Hirata had recovered and gone on to achieve things he’d never dreamed of. He had a wife he adored, two beautiful children, and a third on the way. Life was good.

Still, he feared for Taeko’s and Tatsuo’s future. The world was cruel to the progeny of disgraced fathers, and his children and Sano’s were already feeling the sting.

“Was anybody hurt in the fight?” Midori said anxiously.

“No,” Taeko said. “I scared the boys away. I told them that if they didn’t stop bothering us, my father would beat them up. I said that my father is the best fighter in Edo.”

“You shouldn’t brag,” Midori said. “It’s not polite.”

“But it’s true,” Tatsuo piped up.

Hirata shrugged modestly. He was the best, as he’d proven in the many tournaments and duels he’d won. After his injury, he’d been a cripple, in constant pain. Then he’d apprenticed himself to a mystic martial arts master, an itinerant priest named Ozuno. Five years of rigorous training had restored his health, transformed his broken body into muscle, sinew, and bone as strong as steel, and developed his combat skills to the point that he was almost invincible. Secret rituals had conditioned his mind, endowing him with a wisdom far beyond his thirty-six years and a new perspective. The Tokugawa regime was but a dust speck in the cosmos. Political machinations couldn’t take away the fruits of his hard work. Nothing could.

At least nothing had yet.

“Excuse me, Honorable Master.” A servant knelt at the threshold of the bedchamber. “There’s a message from the sosakan-sama. He wants your help with a new case.”

Hirata was intrigued and excited. He said to Midori, “Maybe this is what we’ve been waiting for.”

After washing, eating a quick breakfast, and donning his heavy winter clothes, Hirata took his swords down from the rack in the entryway and fastened them at his waist. He hesitated at the door.

The best martial artist in Edo was afraid to go outside.

Resisting his fear, he threw the door open. A rush of cold air that smelled of charcoal smoke greeted him. Servants were shoveling snow off the path through the garden. Hirata breathed deeply, slowing his heartbeat, calming his nerves, heightening his trained senses. He heard guards patrolling the castle, servants rattling buckets, and in the distant city the dogs barking, shopkeepers hawking their wares, and the ripple of the river. He smelled and tasted fish sizzling on grills, noodles cooking in garlic-flavored broth, night-soil in barrows headed for the countryside. Through the flood of sensory details he felt the auras given off by the million people in Edo. Each was distinct, an energy that signaled its owner’s health, personality, and emotions. Although there were far too many auras to memorize, Hirata recognized those of people he knew. He projected his senses outward, searching the city.

Midori came to stand beside him. “Is he there?”

“No.” Hirata didn’t feel the aura he was looking for, that he’d encountered for the first time eighteen months ago.

He’d been at Ueno Temple when he’d felt an aura more powerful than any he’d ever met. It emanated from a man with powers far beyond what Hirata had thought possible for a mere mortal. Struck with awe and terror, Hirata had waited for the man to reveal himself-but he hadn’t. Instead, the man had begun loitering invisibly near him, taunting him. Once only, he’d let Hirata catch a glimpse of him, then slipped away.

Since then, Hirata had been searching for the man he called his stalker, whose name and face he didn’t know, whose fighting skills he probably couldn’t match, who could follow him anywhere. He lived in fear of an attack that might hurt his family and friends as well as himself. He spent days riding through the city, trying to lure his stalker into the open; but so far his stalker remained hidden and anonymous.

“Maybe he’s not coming back,” Midori said. She was one of the few people that Hirata had told about his stalker. Sano was another. He’d sworn them all to secrecy. He didn’t want anyone else to know he was afraid of a ghost that nobody but himself could detect.

“Yes, he is,” Hirata said. “He’s hovering in the distance, biding his time.”

“For what?” Midori tried, not very hard, to hide her skepticism.

“To fight me,” Hirata said.

Many men would like to beat him in combat and replace him as Edo’s top martial artist. Many had tried. All had failed. But Hirata realized that even his mystical powers couldn’t keep him in his prime forever. Eventually someone would come along who could defeat him. He feared it was the stalker. He sensed that the time for a showdown was near.

“What are your teacher’s sayings that you’re always quoting?” Midori said. “‘What we fear, we create.’ ‘His own mind is a warrior’s most formidable adversary.’ I wonder if your mind is driving you crazy. Maybe this stalker doesn’t really exist. Maybe you made him up.”

“I did not.” Annoyance prickled Hirata.

His wife didn’t entirely believe in his mystical powers, even though she’d seen him perform astonishing feats. A practical woman, she thought everything had a rational explanation. But of course Hirata hadn’t believed in the supernatural until he’d experienced it himself. He couldn’t expect Midori to understand. And he had to admit that there could be truth to what she’d said. Perhaps his mind and his fear had built the stalker into a bigger, stronger person than the man really was. But Hirata didn’t think so.

“I have to go,” he said.

Concern for him crept into Midori’s eyes in spite of her doubts that he was in any real danger. “Be careful.”

3

Guards in the towers and enclosed corridors atop the walls of Edo Castle looked down at the main gate, which opened to let out a procession of mounted samurai. Sano rode in the lead, Hirata by his side. Marume and Fukida followed with fifty soldiers from his army. His heart lightened as it always did when he escaped the castle’s confines. As he and his men crossed the bridge over the moat, he breathed the eye-watering, cheek-stinging cold and the fresh atmosphere of hope.

They turned on the avenue that separated Edo Castle from the daimyo district, where the feudal lords lived in vast, walled compounds. The wooden framework structures of fire-watch towers were sketched against a blue sky pillowed with white clouds. Snow lay shin-deep on the wide avenue. There wasn’t much traffic except a squadron of samurai on horseback approaching from the opposite direction. Poles on their backs flew banners that bore the crest of a daimyo clan allied with Yanagisawa. They barreled straight toward Sano, their chins tilted up at an insolent angle.

Marume and Fukida galloped forward. “Hey!” Marume said. “Move aside!”

The soldiers kept going. Sano clenched his jaw. While the shogun had backed him, he’d commanded the respect of almost everybody. Since he’d lost favor, no one deferred to him. He should be used to it by now, but it was still hard to take.

Fukida, Marume, and his other troops reached for their swords. Sano said, “Let it go.” The satisfaction of teaching the soldiers a lesson wasn’t worth the loss of human lives. Early on, Sano’s younger, hotheaded retainers had fought many brawls on his behalf. Too many had died. Not only did Sano hate the waste, but he needed all his troops.

His men reluctantly desisted. The soldiers snickered and started to ride through Sano’s army.

Hirata blocked them. He’d moved so swiftly that they were startled to find him in their path. “Go around us.”

His voice was quiet, but his aura of power stopped the soldiers. Their fright showed as they recognized him. They knew he could kill them before they could strike him once. Nobody dared insult Sano in Hirata’s presence. Laughing as if at a joke that wasn’t funny, they slunk around Sano’s group.