The Ronin’s Mistress

expression while Kajikawa stood over him, the blade against his throat.

* * *

“I want to go outside,” Akiko said.

She and Reiko had been playing together in the parlor all morning. Dolls littered the floor around them. Although Reiko was worried about her father, and impatient for news about Kajikawa, she enjoyed spending time with her daughter. But Akiko had grown restless.

“No, it’s too cold and icy.” Reiko heard the wind keening and ice shards shattering on the roof. “We have to stay inside.”

Akiko marched to the exterior door and pushed it open. Reiko sighed. Her daughter was so much like herself-determined to do what she wanted.

The crystalline trees and the jagged icicles that hung from the eaves, the veranda railings, and the pavilion in the center of the frozen pond gave the garden a dreamlike quality. Hirata’s children, dressed in bright, puffy coats, ran across the frozen snow and slid.

“Me, too.” Akiko ran into the garden.

“Wait,” Reiko called, following her daughter. “Not without your coat and shoes!”

She minced over the slippery snow. Akiko joined Taeko and Tatsuo. She ran and slid, laughing gleefully. Reiko chased and caught Akiko and carried her toward the house.

“Naughty girl,” she scolded. “Can’t you ever listen to me?”

Akiko was brave about physical danger and pain, but she couldn’t bear censure from her mother. She began to cry.

Chiyo met them at the door, her face worried. “I’ve just heard that there’s trouble in the palace. Something terrible has happened. No one seems to know what. Your husband is there. So is Masahiro.”

* * *

The atmosphere in the chamber reminded Sano of the moment after an earthquake has toppled buildings across the city. As Kajikawa held the sword to the shogun’s throat, there was a hush except for the shogun’s whimpers and Kajikawa’s panting breaths. Sano halted with one foot on the platform and one on the step below, hands flung up. Everybody else was perfectly still, as if afraid that the slightest movement would trigger an aftershock.

Kajikawa’s face was deathly white beneath the soot. He gazed at the sword in his hand, as though he couldn’t believe that his actions had brought him to this. Neither could anyone else, Sano thought.

“Don’t come any closer, or I’ll-” Kajikawa gagged, his next words stuck in his craw. His mind wasn’t so completely unhinged that he could openly threaten the shogun.

“We won’t,” Sano hastened to say.

He didn’t dare try to wrest the sword from Kajikawa. In a tussle, the blade could go anywhere, including through the shogun. Sano backed down the steps with slow, exaggerated care, his pulse and mind racing.

“Help!” the shogun cried in a voice squeezed thin and high by terror.

Yoritomo turned to Yanagisawa. “Father, do something!”

Yanagisawa ordered, “Put that sword down!” His voice was sharp with indignation.

They were scared of what would happen to them if anything happened to the shogun, Sano knew. They weren’t the only ones.

Kajikawa looked at Yanagisawa and Yoritomo as if they’d spoken a language he didn’t understand. He panted and moaned. He didn’t move.

Ihara spoke up. “Are you a complete idiot, man? Haven’t you learned anything from Lord Asano’s example?” His croaky voice was filled with contempt.

“That was an order,” Yanagisawa rapped out. “Put it down!”

“My father is the chamberlain. You have to obey him,” Yoritomo said.

Sano saw offense flare in Kajikawa’s eyes. He had to pacify the man, fast. “Let’s all just calm down,” Sano said in as soothing a tone as he could muster.

“In case you’ve forgotten, the penalty for drawing a sword inside Edo Castle is death,” Kato informed Kajikawa. “For threatening the shogun, it’s death, too.”

“We’ll have to execute you twice.” Ihara uttered nervous laughter that sounded like a monkey hooting.

“Don’t you mock me!” Kajikawa said through gritted teeth. “I’ll kill him, and then we’ll see who laughs!”

The shogun wailed.

“Never mind them, Kajikawa-san,” Sano said, appalled that the elders were making the situation worse, their judgment impaired by panic. “You wanted to explain. Let His Excellency go, and you’ll have your chance.”

“Shut up!” Yanagisawa told Sano. “You’ve already caused enough trouble. I’ll handle this.” Turning to Kajikawa, he spoke with kindly concern. “It’s true that you’ve committed two capital offenses. But I can bend the rules. If you drop the sword and step away from His Excellency, I’ll grant you an official pardon. I’ll also pardon you for your role in the forty-seven ronin’s vendetta and the attack on Magistrate Ueda. You’ll walk away from this as if nothing had happened. I promise.” He smiled, focusing all his charm on Kajikawa. “Have we a deal?”

It was the best performance Sano had ever seen from Yanagisawa. But Kajikawa reacted with a disdainful snort. “You’ll never pardon me. You’re just saying what you think I want to hear, so I’ll do what you want.”

“My word is good.” Yanagisawa’s voice fairly dripped with sincerity. “I swear.”

Kajikawa laughed, a bitter bark. “You’re forgetting, I’ve been in this court for a long time. I know what you are. How stupid do you think I am?”

Sano winced.

“Listen to the chamberlain,” Kato urged. “You need his help. Take the deal.”

“It’s the best you’ll get,” Ihara said.

Holding the shogun pinned to the platform with his sword, Kajikawa poked his finger at Yanagisawa. “If you expect me to believe you, then you’re not only a corrupt, lying cheat, you’re the one who’s stupid!”

“Don’t talk to my father like that!” Yoritomo said.

“I know you, too,” Kajikawa said with the relish of a man who has kept his opinions pent up for ages and finally lets them spill. “You bedded your way to the top of the regime, just like your father did. If I kill His Excellency, you’re both as good as dead, too. Just watch!”

He moved his blade in a sawing motion a hair’s breadth above the shogun’s throat. The shogun flinched, moaning. Kajikawa let loose a hysterical giggle.

“Your entire family will pay for this,” Ihara blustered.

“They’ll all die with you,” Kato said.

“Be quiet!” Kajikawa yelled. “I’ve had enough of you two!”

“What are you going to do? Kill us?” mocked Kato.

The elders were trying to divert Kajikawa’s ire toward themselves, Sano realized. They hoped he would charge at them, the guards would seize him, and the shogun would be saved.

“I don’t have to kill you,” Kajikawa said with cunning born of desperation. “You’re going to do it for me.” He pointed at a guard.

The guard looked startled to find himself singled out, then chuckled as if he thought Kajikawa was joking.

“Kill the old monkey,” Kajikawa ordered. “Or I’ll kill the shogun.”

Dismay crinkled Ihara’s simian features. “You’re not serious.”

“Go ahead!” cried the shogun.

Reluctant, yet unable to disobey the shogun’s order, the guard drew his sword. Yanagisawa, Yoritomo, and Kato looked on in horror. Sano said, “Think about this for a moment, Kajikawa-san,” but the shogun shrieked, “Do it!”

As Ihara backed away, too dumbfounded to plead for his life, the guard slashed his paunchy middle. A huge, bleeding gash doubled him over. He gurgled blood from his mouth. His knees knocked and he collapsed dead.

Cries of horror blared. The shogun retched and choked, vomiting. Horrified by the sudden carnage, Sano looked at Masahiro. The boy was as gray and rigid as a stone statue. He’d seen death before, but not a murder in Japan’s most secure, civilized place.