The Ronin’s Mistress

conscience uneasy. The trees rattling sounded like fingernails tapping on a door, someone trying to get out. Reiko worried about her father, whom she couldn’t visit today. The cold air sank into her spirit, along with a sense of foreboding.

* * *

“Kajikawa was seen near the palace and at the Momijiyama within the past hour,” Hirata said.

“You take the Momijiyama,” Sano said.

He and Marume and Fukida sped to the palace. Icicles hung from the eaves like jagged teeth. Pines wore heavy, grotesque swags of ice. Dismounting outside the main door, Sano called to the sentry, “Where is Kajikawa?”

The sentry gestured. “In the back garden.”

Sliding on the hard, smooth snow, Sano and his men hurried around the palace. The bridge over the frozen pond and the pavilion in the middle seemed sculpted from ice. Trees clattered in the wind. Ice shards tinkled on the ground. A guard pointed at the latticework that enclosed the space beneath the palace’s foundation and said, “We chased Kajikawa under there.” A panel of lattice had been removed and thrown aside. A dark hole gaped. From it came scuffling and yelling.

“Some of the troops went in after Kajikawa,” the guard said. “Some ran around the building to try to catch him when he comes out.”

“He could come out inside the palace,” Sano said. Its floor was riddled with openings. “Is anybody watching for him there?”

The guard’s chagrined expression said nobody had thought of that. Sano and his men stampeded through the door. They ran off in separate directions along the corridors. Sano flung open doors, surprising a few officials who’d shown up for work. None had seen the fugitive. Sano heard thumps as the searchers groped their way through the palace’s underbelly. He sped along a covered corridor that joined two wings of the building. At the end was a door, decorated with gold Tokugawa crests, that led to the shogun’s chambers.

Premonition made Sano’s heart drop.

He tried the door, which was locked from the inside. He kicked the wooden panels until the door caved in. Stale, overheated air that smelled of smoke and medicines wafted out. As Sano raced down passages lined with movable wall panels, he heard shouts and whimpering. He halted at the threshold of the shogun’s private sitting room.

Inside, amid clouds of smoke, servants exclaimed and coughed as they beat brooms at flames that spread across the tatami. An overturned brazier had spewed hot charcoal around a large, square hole in the floor. People shrank against the walls. Sano pushed past the servants, treading over cinders and ash. He stopped near a low platform backed by a mural of white cranes and a red sun. Four men occupied the platform, like actors onstage who were so intent on their drama that they didn’t notice that the theater was on fire.

The shogun held a cushion in front of his chest like a shield. His cylindrical black cap was askew. He cringed away from Kajikawa, who knelt at the left edge of the platform.

“A thousand apologies, Your Excellency.” Gasping, Kajikawa staggered on his knees toward the shogun. “Please excuse me for intruding on you like this.”

The other two men on the platform were Yanagisawa and Yoritomo. Yoritomo put his arm around the shogun. “Don’t come any closer!” he yelled at Kajikawa.

Standing behind his son and the shogun, Yanagisawa ordered, “Get out this instant!”

His face, and Yoritomo’s, showed shock as well as anger. Sano pictured the scene he’d just missed-the brazier erupting out of the floor, the burning coals flying, and Kajikawa surfacing like a demon from the underworld.

Kajikawa ignored Yanagisawa and Yoritomo. “I can explain everything, Your Excellency. I beg you to listen!”

The shogun whimpered in fright. Yanagisawa called to the men hovering by the walls. “Don’t just stand there. Take him away!”

Three palace guards stumbled forward. The other men were the shogun’s boy concubines and Yanagisawa’s two cronies from the Council of Elders.

“In all my years, I’ve never seen such a thing!” Kato said.

“It’s an outrage!” Ihara said.

Dismayed by the way his search for the fugitive had ended, Sano shouted, “Kajikawa!”

The servants put out the fire. The guards paused. Everyone turned toward Sano.

“Ahh, Sano-san. Good.” The shogun smiled weakly; he’d forgotten he was displeased with Sano. He looked hopeful that Sano could restore order.

Yanagisawa’s and Yoritomo’s expressions hardened into hostility. Surprise marked Kato’s mask-like features and Ihara’s simian face. Kajikawa turned to Sano. The little man’s clothes were streaked with grime, drenched from the rain. His topknot had unraveled; soot smeared his delicate features. His eyes were wild, his mouth a downturned grimace.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your father-in-law.” Kajikawa seemed horrified by his predicament, by the forces he’d unleashed that had spun out of his control. “I didn’t mean for anyone to be hurt except for Kira.”

“I know. You wanted to punish Kira, and you weren’t able to do it yourself.” Although Sano pitied Kajikawa, his tone was hard. “So you set Oishi on Kira. It was revenge by proxy.”

Kajikawa’s grimace gaped with surprise. “How did you know?”

Yanagisawa recovered his voice. “If you want a little chat, have it someplace else.” He obviously realized that revelations about the vendetta were forthcoming.

“Oishi told me,” Sano said to Kajikawa.

“He promised not to tell, but I knew it would come out,” Kajikawa lamented.

The shogun flung aside his cushion. “What is he talking about?”

“Nothing,” Yoritomo said, eager to prevent Sano from getting credit for discovering the truth about the vendetta.

“You should have thought before you told Oishi about his wife and Lord Asano and Kira,” Sano said.

“I couldn’t have known what would happen!” Kajikawa cried. “I made a mistake!”

“You should have thought before you started a manhunt for Kajikawa and chased him into the palace,” Yoritomo shrilled at Sano. “You’re the one who made a mistake.”

Sano belatedly noticed Masahiro among the shogun’s boys. He was astonished because he hadn’t known Masahiro was serving the shogun today. Masahiro looked just as astonished to see his father. Sano decided he’d better break up this scene before something worse happened.

“I apologize for the inconvenience, Your Excellency,” Sano said, then beckoned to Kajikawa. “Come with me. You’re under arrest.”

“No!” Kajikawa raised palms that were burned red from pushing up the hot brazier. He began to weep. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. Forgive me for hurting Magistrate Ueda! That fool I hired went after the wrong man!”

Yanagisawa said to the guards, “Remove him! Now!”

The guards advanced. Sano cut ahead of them. Kajikawa scrambled to the back of the platform and cried, “Don’t-don’t touch me!” He fumbled the sword at his waist out of its scabbard. His shaking hand held the gleaming steel blade aloft.

Everyone was stunned speechless. Sano and the guards stopped. Yanagisawa and Yoritomo froze, mouths dropped, angry words stuck in their throats, while the elders, the servants, and the boys stared. The shogun had never looked stupider.

Drawing a weapon inside Edo Castle was a bad enough crime. Doing it in the shogun’s presence was unthinkable. Sano thought of Lord Asano’s attack on Kira while Kajikawa watched. This time it was Kajikawa, the witness, who’d snapped.

Sano started to climb the three steps to the platform to seize Kajikawa before he could do any harm. Kajikawa shrieked, “Leave me alone, or-or-”

He swung the sword down at the shogun. The room gasped. Sano’s breath caught; his steps faltered. The shogun squealed, dodged sideways, and fell on his back. He lay with his knees bent, his toes in their white socks curled on the floor, his arms outstretched and fingers stiff. Fright wrenched his face into a pop-eyed, slack-jawed