The Ronin’s Mistress

gates in Edo closed each night, to restrict traffic and confine troublemakers. “I couldn’t stop them.” The watchman exclaimed, “They had a head stuck on a spear!”

Sano envisioned the gang parading Kira’s head around town like a war trophy. It seemed outrageous, barbaric. “Which way did they go?”

The watchman pointed. Sano and his men followed the gang’s trail across the Ryogoku Bridge. They had plenty of witnesses to direct them. Gate sentries, shopkeepers, and other folks had seen the gang. “There were forty-seven of them,” said a noodle vendor.

“They didn’t even try to hide,” Fukida remarked.

Indeed, the forty-seven samurai had made no secret of what they’d done. The Nihonbashi merchant quarter buzzed with the news. People clustered in shops, doorways, and teahouses, glad to pass on information to Sano and anyone else who came along.

“They killed the bastard who caused their master’s death,” said a teahouse owner. Everyone in the teahouse cheered. “I gave them all free drinks.”

Sano wasn’t surprised that the gang had aroused the sympathy of the public, which romanticized people who took the law into their own hands. “Did they say where they were going?”

“To Sengaku Temple.”

“I might have guessed,” Sano said to Hirata as they and their party rode away. “Lord Asano’s tomb is at Sengaku Temple. Of course his men would take Kira’s head there.”

The story of the vendetta spread through town. News-sellers were hawking hastily printed broadsheets: “Read all about the Forty-seven Ronin Revenge!”

“So the crime already has a name,” Fukida said.

“It has a nice ring to it,” Marume said.

Restaurants had fed the gang; girls at the bathhouses had offered them sexual favors. The city had a carnival atmosphere that seemed a harbinger of more lawlessness. The trail continued through Ginza, the sparsely populated district around the Tokugawa silver mint. Sano and his men turned their horses onto the Daiichi Keihin, the main highway to points south. The highway ran through woods, past walled samurai estates. The gang’s footprints showed clearly in the snow and led straight to Sengaku Temple.

Sengaku was a modest temple, a few buildings set apart from the huge Zojo Temple district to the west and the inns, markets, and brothels that served the religious pilgrims. Sano and his men stopped at the outer gate, a simple square arch topped with a tile roof. They jumped off their horses and looked around.

The sun shone on the snow, which glittered with jeweled lights. Shadows reflected the cold, vivid blue of the sky. Sano saw a few houses in the distance, smoke rising from their chimneys. Crows perched in the leafless trees like sentries; their caws echoed weirdly. An unnatural stillness gripped the landscape. No one moved. Even the horses stood as if their hooves had frozen to the ground. Sano’s men listened, their noses red from the cold, their eyes alert. Hirata’s gaze swept the scene for danger.

“Just because they didn’t hide, that doesn’t mean they want to be caught,” Sano said. He couldn’t help hoping for a challenge that would make the pursuit worthwhile.

He and his men drew their swords. Hirata led the cautious advance through the gate. Beyond it lay an open space, the outer temple precinct. Footprints marked the snow to an inner gate flanked by ornamental pine trees with twisted boughs. The gate was a building with a double-tiered roof; its central doorway led to the inner precinct. From the doorway emerged a priest who wore a hooded cloak over his saffron robe and shaved head. He rushed down the steps to meet Sano and the troops, clearly relieved that the law had arrived.

Clasping his hands, he bowed; then he beckoned. “They’re in here.”

“What are they doing?” Sano asked as the priest led him and his group to the inner precinct.

“Nothing.” The priest sounded perplexed. “They just marched into the temple without a word.” He bypassed the worship hall, where a few other priests stood about in confusion. He pointed at a well-a round hole encircled by a carved stone rim. The snow around it was wet and red. “They washed the head there.”

They had performed a ritual purification of Kira’s head, Sano deduced. His heart began to drum with excitement. The priest led the way through a gate in a stone wall. In a small cemetery, the forty-seven samurai stood crowded amid stone pillars that marked the graves where the ashes of the deceased were buried. Their swords were sheathed, bows and empty slings dangling from their shoulders, spears resting on the ground. Their faded, threadbare clothes were splattered with blood. Grime and whisker stubble shadowed their faces. They gazed at Sano and his party without making a sound, their expressions set in identical hard, stoic lines. They ranged in age from a youth of about sixteen years to old, white-haired men. Some were wounded, with rags wrapped around arms and legs. One fellow had a gory cut across his eye, which was swollen shut and leaking bloody fluid. They all faced Lord Asano’s tomb, a pillar elevated on a stone base and enclosed by a fence made of stone posts. In front of the tomb was a stone lantern with a curved lid and a persimmon-shaped ornament on top. Against the lantern’s tall base stood the forty-seven ronin’s trophy.

Bled dry and washed clean, the neck smoothly severed, Kira’s head looked like a wax prop from a Kabuki play. Sano caught himself thinking how lifelike the details were-the yellowed teeth, the age spots, the gray hairs, the scar on the crown, and the white, wrinkled skin. The mouth hung open; the eyelids drooped. Sano hardly recognized Kira, the prim, stiff-lipped man he’d known.

Sano’s party stared in dumbfounded shock.

Hirata broke the silence and addressed the forty-seven ronin. “This is the shogun’s sosakan-sama.” He indicated Sano. “Which of you is the leader?”

“I am,” said the man standing nearest to Lord Asano’s tomb. “My name is Oishi Kuranosuke.” His voice had the raspy sound of diseased lungs. “I was Lord Asano’s chief councilor.”

He was in his forties, lean but broad-shouldered. Although his pallor was gray with fatigue, his fierce eyes glittered as if from an inner fire. He reminded Sano of statues of guardian deities in temples. The candlelight on their eyes imbued their carved wooden figures with life.

Oishi gestured at his comrades. “These were Lord Asano’s other men.” The other forty-six ronin stood as motionless as the grave markers, except for the youngest, who strode to Oishi’s side. “This is my son, Chikara.”

The two men shared the same long nose, slanted brows, flared nostrils, and thick, firm mouth. But Chikara’s face was still soft with youth, his build sturdy. The ferocity in his eyes seemed a deliberate imitation of his father. It flickered on and off, as though he couldn’t keep up the act.

“Which of you killed Kira?” Sano asked.

“I did.” Oishi spoke quietly. “But we were all in on it together.”

He and his comrades radiated savage pride. Although they’d freely publicized their crime, Sano was nonetheless surprised by their candor. “Are you aware that the shogun forbade action against Kira and your vendetta was therefore illegal?”

“We are,” Oishi said.

“Then why did you do it?” Sano asked.

“We had to avenge Lord Asano’s death. It was our duty.”

That was the stock answer Sano had expected, but he heard something in Oishi’s voice, a faint dissonance of tone. He sensed that the man’s words were true, but perhaps not entirely. “What else?”

“Nothing,” Oishi said, adamant.

Sano perceived a wrongness in the air, like a smell. The silence among the ronin was unnerving. They looked eerily alike, even though their ages, shapes, and facial features varied. They seemed part of one monstrous creature, with Oishi clearly the brains.

“Why are you standing here?” Sano said. “Why didn’t you commit seppuku?” Ritual suicide was mandatory for illegal vendettas, which the law considered murder. “Or run away?”

“We’re awaiting orders,” Oishi said.

Sano frowned in puzzlement. “Orders from whom?” He felt as if he were caught in a nightmare whose events didn’t follow ordinary logic. “To do what?”

“We’re awaiting orders,” Oishi repeated. The other ronin nodded.

“What’s going on?” Sano demanded.

“We avenged our master’s death. Our mission is accomplished.” Oishi’s words sounded stiff and formal, recited. Although none of his men spoke, Sano could almost hear cheers shouted from their minds.