The Ronin's Mistress (26 page)

“I suppose you heard my whole talk with Ohgami,” Sano said.

Reiko nodded. “I hope you’re not angry at me for eavesdropping.”

“No,” Sano said as they walked toward their private quarters. “You spared me the trouble of telling you the bad news.”

“Are things really so bad?” Fear shrank Reiko’s voice.

Sano held his breath for a moment, then let it ease out. “I won’t lie. But remember, things have often looked bad for us. We’ve always come out all right.” He attempted a joke. “Besides, wouldn’t life be dull without a little trouble once in a while?”

Reiko didn’t laugh. “It seems worse this time than it ever was.”

It did, partly because his position had already been precarious. But Sano suspected that the current situation disturbed Reiko, and himself, more than past difficulties because they’d had their faces rubbed in the consequences of a samurai losing his status. Oishi’s story of Lord Asano’s suicide and his own hardships had struck too close to home for Sano, and he gathered that Reiko had been deeply affected by the tales of woe she’d heard from Lady Asano and Oishi’s wife.

The corridor was cold, as if from the shadow of the cloud that hung over them, the threat of separation. Sano took off his surcoat, wrapped it around Reiko, and said, “We’ll get through this.”

She managed a smile. He felt her inhale, draw strength from their closeness, and brace herself up. He loved her for her courage and fortitude that had sustained them both during their twelve often tumultuous years together. His love moved him so much that he felt uncomfortable and sought a change of subject.

“What’s that you’re holding?” he asked.

Reiko opened the bamboo container, unrolled the scroll, and read the written message. Her expression grew more troubled. “It’s from Lady Wakasa. She says marriage prospects for Masahiro have completely dried up. Some of the clans she approached are in favor of condemning the forty-seven
r
ō
nin
and they don’t want to be associated with us because they think you’re trying to influence the verdict the other way. The other clans are in favor of pardoning, but nobody would agree to a
miai
.” A
miai
was the ritual first meeting between a prospective bride and groom and their families. “Everybody thinks you’re on the way out. So she’s giving up searching for a bride for Masahiro until the business is settled.”

She lifted her gaze to Sano. A wry smile twisted her mouth. “She’s deserting us just when we need her most.”

“Who cares about that old busybody?” Sano said, although her letter had added more weight to a heavy pile of worries. “Nobody died and put her in charge.”

As he and Reiko enjoyed a laugh at Lady Wakasa’s expense, wails drifted through the house. Reiko sighed. “That’s Okaru. It’s going to be a difficult night.”

“Things will look better in the morning,” Sano promised.

23

THE JUDGES DEBATED
far into the night. They included Inspector General Nakae and Lord Nabeshima, whom Magistrate Ueda had allowed to rejoin the court. Their chamber was thick with smoke from their tobacco pipes. They shook their fists and pounded on the floor while they argued loudly, until Magistrate Ueda said, “Let’s take another vote.” His eyes were bleary from the smoke; his head ached. “All in favor of pardoning the forty-seven
r
ō
nin,
raise your hands.”

Seven hands went up.

“All in favor of condemning?”

The other seven judges raised their hands.

“This is the third time we’ve come out divided half and half,” Nakae said.

“We’re getting nowhere,” Colonel Hitomi said crossly.

“We have to keep at it until we’re all on the same side,” Superintendent Ogiwara said.

Lord Nabeshima combined a laugh with a snort. “I’m not changing my mind.” He folded his arms and glared at the seven judges who opposed him. “Are you?”

“Not I,” they chorused.

Inspector General Nakae’s eyes gleamed with cunning. He said to Superintendent Ogiwara, “The next time I audit your department, I might find a serious discrepancy in the account books.”

“What?” Superintendent Ogiwara said, puzzled, fearful, and insulted. “There are no discrepancies.”

“I’m sure I can find something.” Nakae paused, letting the threat of reprimands, fines, demotion, and dismissal hang in the air. “Unless you change your vote.”

Superintendent Ogiwara gasped. “That’s blackmail!”

The judges on his side protested. Magistrate Ueda wasn’t shocked because Nakae would stoop to such a low tactic, but because Nakae had done it so openly. Nakae was clearly too impatient to wait until he could get each opposing judge alone and negotiate a private deal.

“I can play that game.” Minister Motoori said to Lord Nabeshima, “The shogun wants to build new temples. Change your vote, or I’ll advise him that you should provide the money.”

“You wouldn’t!” Lord Nabeshima looked aghast at the thought of the fortune that the new temples would cost him. He glared at his friend Nakae. “See what you’ve started!”

“Rule number seven,” Magistrate Ueda said. “No blackmail and no deals. Anyone who breaks it will spend ten days in Edo Jail.”

Inspector General Nakae shook his head in angry disgust. “So you don’t like my solution to our problem. What’s yours?”

Magistrate Ueda said the only thing he could. “We hope for new evidence, and in the meantime, we continue debating.” He looked at the men around him. Their faces were puffy with weariness. “We’ve all had enough for one day. The court is adjourned until tomorrow.”

*   *   *

TEMPLE BELLS TOLLED
the hour of the boar as Magistrate Ueda traveled home. His portly figure swayed in the saddle while he rode through the Hibiya administrative district, just south of Edo Castle, where he lived in a mansion attached to the Court of Justice. One bodyguard rode in front of him, one behind. The district was dimly lit by lanterns burning in a few of the houses crouched behind earthen walls. The streets were empty. The horses’ hooves crunching on icy snow punctuated the lonely sound of dogs howling.

Magistrate Ueda breathed vigorously, letting the wintry night air cleanse his system of tobacco smoke and bad will. How fed up he was with that stubborn pack of mules! But he must guide the court to a just verdict. He worried about Sano, Reiko, and their children. Whichever way the case turned out, they could suffer.

He was so deep in thought, and his bodyguards so sleepy, that they didn’t notice the man who’d followed them from Edo Castle. The man sped along in the shadows along the walls, the noise from the horses muffling his footsteps. Dressed in black, a hood pulled over his head, he moved with sinister stealth.

Magistrate Ueda and his guards rode down a path that bordered a canal. Steep retaining walls descended to the water, which gleamed in the moonlight. Beyond the canal rose mansions; over it arched a wooden bridge. Magistrate Ueda and his guards rode in single file onto the bridge. He was halfway across when the guard behind him uttered a cry filled with surprise and pain. Startled, Magistrate Ueda reined his horse sideways. He saw the guard clutch his neck, then topple off his mount.

“Inaba-
san
!” Magistrate Ueda called. “What—?”

Another cry shrilled. Magistrate Ueda looked at the guard ahead of him. The guard flailed his arms, then slumped. An arrow protruded from his back. His body listed. He dangled from one stirrup as his horse reared and galloped away.

Panic filled Magistrate Ueda: This was an ambush, and he was the next target. But even while he looked around for the archer, while he feared for his own life, he climbed off his horse and hurried to his fallen guard. Inaba was an old friend whom he must try to save. Then he saw the arrow that had pierced Inaba’s throat, the great spill of blood on the bridge, and Inaba’s eyes blankly reflecting the moonlight.

An arrow whizzed past Magistrate Ueda and struck the bridge’s railing. He looked in the direction from which the arrow had come. On the path along the canal, the shadowy figure of the archer took aim to shoot again.

Magistrate Ueda ran. He cleared the bridge and fled into an alley between two estates while footsteps thudded behind him. It was so dark that he had to grope his way, stumbling on snow piles. The archer wouldn’t be able to get a good shot, he hoped. He was only a few blocks from his mansion; he would be safe soon. But he was old, fat, and out of shape. He panted and staggered as he neared the end of the alley. The footsteps pounded louder, closer.

A hand grabbed his shoulder. Crying out, he turned and saw his pursuer’s black-clothed figure. The dim light from the end of the alley gleamed in the man’s eyes. The man raised an object. Magistrate Ueda saw the gloved hand and the club studded with shiny iron spikes. He fumbled for the sword at his waist, but before he could draw it, the club came swinging down.

A hard blow landed against his forehead. Pain burst in his skull. His vision fragmented into brilliant shards. He fell through space. An instant later he crashed onto the ground. He tried to call for help, but more blows smote him. His last thought was,
Who wants me dead?

*   *   *

WHILE SHE SLEPT
that night, a part of Reiko remained alert in case her children should cry or danger should threaten her family. The moment she heard Hirata’s voice say, “Excuse me, Sano-
san,
Lady Reiko,” she was instantly awake.

“What is it?” Reiko threw off the heavy quilts, shivered in her night robe, and squinted in the light from the lantern that Hirata held. Chiyo stood beside him, her expression grave.

“It’s your father,” Hirata said.

Sano groggily pushed himself upright. “Magistrate Ueda? What’s happened?”

“A messenger just came from his house,” Hirata said. “He’s been attacked.”

Reiko’s heart began to pound so hard that she felt as if a hammer were striking inside her body. She felt dizzy and faint. “Is he—?” She couldn’t bear to utter the word.

“He’s alive,” Chiyo said quickly.

Reiko felt a flood of relief that dried up as Hirata said, “But he’s seriously injured.”

“Who did it?” Sano said, as stricken as Reiko was. “How did it happen?”

“The messenger didn’t know the details,” Hirata answered.

Reiko flung herself out of bed, groping for her clothes. “I must go to him at once!”

Masahiro appeared at the door. “Can I go, too?”

Down the corridor, Akiko let out a wail. Reiko said, “No, Masahiro, I need you to take care of your sister.” She didn’t want him to see his grandfather hurt and be upset.

“I’ll stay with them,” Chiyo said.

Reiko managed a smile for Chiyo as she threw her kimono on over her night robe. “Thank you.” She spared a thought to hope that Okaru hadn’t made a permanent rift in their friendship.

*   *   *

THE PROCESSION STORMED
out the gate of Edo Castle. Sano, Hirata, and Detectives Marume and Fukida rode at the front. Troops brought up the rear behind Reiko, who traveled on an oxcart. Reiko couldn’t have borne the slow pace of a palanquin. She sat on the edge of the bench behind the driver and the two lumbering oxen. She barely noticed the rattling and swaying of the cart or the cold penetrating the quilt bundled around her. She was frantic to get to her father, terrified that he would take a turn for the worse and she would arrive too late.

When the procession reached the Hibiya administrative district, Reiko unwrapped her quilt, jumped off the oxcart, and ran. The walls outside the mansions and the lights from inside streaked past her. Her breath puffed white vapor into the frigid darkness. She caught up with Sano and his men at her father’s mansion. A sentry opened the gate. Reiko rushed in; Sano and Hirata hurried after her. The low, half-timbered mansion where Reiko had grown up was lit with lanterns burning on the veranda and in the windows. Inside, Reiko ran down the corridors. Servants stood back to let her pass. She avoided their gazes for fear of seeing terrible news written there. Reaching her father’s chamber, she burst through the door and halted.

Magistrate Ueda lay in bed, covered up to his chin with a brown quilt. His head was wrapped in a white cloth bandage, his face so battered that Reiko barely recognized him. Reddish-purple bruises covered his eyes, which were swollen and shut. His nose and mouth were also swollen, with blood crusted around the nostrils and oozing from a cut on his lip. A doctor sat nearby, an old man dressed in the dark blue coat of the medical profession, with a chest full of medicines and instruments. He measured herbs into a cup of steaming water.

Reiko moaned in horror even while her legs buckled with relief that her father was alive. She fell on her knees at his bedside. “Father!”

Magistrate Ueda didn’t speak, open his eyes, or seem to hear her. His breath gurgled in and out of his mouth. Reiko looked anxiously at the doctor.

“He’s unconscious,” the doctor said. “That’s quite a severe injury to his head.”

The tears that Reiko had suppressed during the trip now streamed down her face. She reached under the quilt, found her father’s hand, and squeezed his fingers. They were cold, inert.

Sano and Hirata came in with the magistrate’s longtime chief retainer, an old samurai named Ikeda. He’d taught Reiko to ride a horse when she was young.

“Don’t cry yet, little one,” he said, kind but brisk. “Your father is too strong and stubborn to be killed so easily.”

Reiko felt braced up, the way she had when she’d fallen off her horse and Ikeda had lifted her back into the saddle. She dried her tears.

“Can you tell us what happened?” Sano asked, his face drawn with concern.

“The magistrate and his bodyguards were ambushed on their way home from Edo Castle.” Ikeda explained that the guards had been killed by arrows shot at them. “The magistrate must have tried to run away. He was beaten in an alley not far from here.”