Laura Rowland: The Iris Fan

The weight of his armor slowed his rush at Sano long enough for Sano to snatch up Hirata’s sword. Then Yanagisawa was upon Sano, lashing and shouting, “For twenty years-whatever I tried to do, you were always there to trip me up! Well, no more!”

Sano was too busy parrying to strike back. Although he was the better fighter, he was worn out from his fight with Hirata, and Yanagisawa had the lethal energy of the insane. “This is for all the times you turned the shogun against me!” Yanagisawa hacked at Sano’s head. As he recited old grievances, his blade whistled, carving wild patterns that Sano frantically dodged. “This is for Yoritomo!”

Akiko ran at Yanagisawa, grabbed his leg, and shouted, “Leave my father alone!”

“Akiko, get away!” Sano yelled.

* * *

Yanagisawa kicked at Akiko while hacking at Sano, but she hung on. Reiko was horrified to see her daughter caught in the battle between Sano and Yanagisawa. She screamed and rushed to rescue Akiko. Yanagisawa swung at them. Sano whacked Yanagisawa across the chest. His blade didn’t penetrate the armor, but Yanagisawa faltered; he missed Reiko and Akiko. Reiko pulled Akiko off Yanagisawa, and he resumed attacking Sano.

“I’ll kill you if it’s the last thing I do!”

Sano struck his knee guard. Yanagisawa yelped in pain and staggered. Yoshisato ran to help him. Masahiro chased Yoshisato, tackled him, and brought him down. Holding Akiko so that she wouldn’t run back into the battle, Reiko realized that Sano was bound to lose. Without his armor, already exhausted from his fight with Hirata, he panted as he dodged Yanagisawa’s frenzied slicing.

Seeing her husband attacked by Yanagisawa was different from seeing him attacked by Hirata. Somehow Reiko hadn’t really thought Hirata would kill Sano, and she’d been correct. Something in her had known that Hirata’s loyalty to his master would ultimately win out. Instinct had moved her to defend Sano, not the belief that he was in real danger and needed her help. But now the danger to Sano was real, mortal.

Akiko knew; that was why she’d tried to protect him. Reiko knew, too.

Yanagisawa had often tried to kill Sano. Nothing stood in his way this time.

Reiko felt a sensation like cold water dashed on her, rinsing from her eyes the haze created by her anger at Sano and from her mind the list of his misdeeds. During the past four years, she’d thought of Sano as a source of nothing but trouble. Seeing him up against Yanagisawa in their long-overdue fight to the death put him in a new perspective.

Yanagisawa embodied all that was evil and Sano all that was good.

The harsh light of comparison exposed the unshaded, black-and-white fact that Sano had taken honor too far, but Yanagisawa personified what happens when a man goes too far in the opposite direction. Sano and Yanagisawa had lived their lives in the same political arena; they’d experienced the same pressures and temptations; and Yanagisawa was what Sano would have become if not for Sano’s refusal to deviate from Bushido. Reiko had deplored his honor as a blight on her and her children’s existence, but now she realized that it was the talisman that had kept Sano from turning into Yanagisawa. It was the cornerstone of his relentless pursuit of justice during this investigation and all those they’d worked on together. It was an integral part of the man she’d fallen in love with nineteen years ago.

The husband she still loved in spite of, and because of, everything.

In the cold, lucid air of revelation, Reiko saw a new battle line drawn. It put her on Sano’s side, where she belonged, which she’d never really left. On the other side was Yanagisawa, the real enemy. All the fury and hatred she’d once directed at Sano now blazed at Yanagisawa.

How dare he attack her husband?

If Yanagisawa killed Sano, then Sano would die thinking she wanted to leave him because she didn’t want to be his wife. He would never know that it wasn’t true.

Reiko shoved Akiko into a corner, shouted, “Stay there!” and snatched a sword from a dead guard.

“No!” Sano shouted at her.

He’d said she would never learn to stay out of danger; Reiko would make him thankful for it. Savage with determination, she swung at Yanagisawa’s back while he fought Sano. Her blade grazed one shoulder then the other, cutting the lacing on the armor panels. They hung like broken wings. She sliced the cord around his waist and the shoulder straps of his tunic. As his tunic fell off, Yanagisawa realized what was happening. He rounded on her and lashed.

Reiko jumped back, her right arm spilling blood from a cut so deep and painful that her breath hissed out of her. She dropped to her knees, clutching the wound that immobilized her arm. Her own physical agony didn’t matter. She moaned because she was of no use to Sano now, when she wanted to be, when it counted the most.

* * *

Yanagisawa whirled to face Sano again. Sano lashed and knocked his helmet off. Except for their gloves and chain-mail sleeves, they were both vulnerable from the waist up. As they lunged and circled, retreated and trampled the dead, their whirring swords met flesh. Blood spattered. Gashes on Sano’s arms and shoulders burned. Masahiro and Yoshisato wrestled, their feet kicking, metal-plated knees banging, while they clawed at each other’s necks. Akiko was chattering anxiously as she tied her sash around Reiko’s arm. Sano feared that his wife was mortally wounded, his son outmatched by Yanagisawa’s. Lady Nobuko hugged herself, both eyes closed tight, terrified. Lord Ienobu watched with more curiosity than apprehension. Sano raised his sword, backhanding a slice at Yanagisawa’s head. His blade locked in a cross against Yanagisawa’s. His arm was already strained from his battle with Hirata. A muscle inside it twisted. The pain snapped open his fingers. His sword dropped.

Unholy glee shone in Yanagisawa’s eyes. As he swung at Sano, he slipped on the bloody floor. Sano hurled himself on Yanagisawa and grabbed the hilt of Yanagisawa’s sword. His weakened right hand slipped off. His left clung. They fell together and landed on the bed. Fighting for control of the weapon, they rolled over the dead shogun. A furious anger boiled up in Sano. Yanagisawa wasn’t the only one with twenty years’ worth of grievances to redress. Something in Sano had known it would come to this-him and Yanagisawa fighting to the death, over the body of their dead lord, to settle their personal scores. It was fate.

Sano pried back Yanagisawa’s fingers until bones cracked and Yanagisawa screamed. He got a clumsy hold on the sword. Yanagisawa swatted it out of his hand and punched his face. Momentarily blinded, ears ringing, nose bleeding, Sano reared back. Yanagisawa sprang and grabbed Sano around the throat. With his left hand Sano scrabbled at the thick, gloved fingers squeezing his windpipe. With his right he clawed at the floor in desperate search for the sword. He closed on a fragment of his broken blade. It was shorter than his forearm, with a jagged break at one end and the sharp tip at the other. He lashed it at Yanagisawa’s head.

Yanagisawa let go of Sano’s neck to protect his own face. He snatched at the blade fragment. Sano stabbed at Yanagisawa’s throat. Yanagisawa caught the jagged end before the tip cut him. Scuffling frantically, he and Sano rolled atop the shogun, each with both hands locked tight around the blade between their bodies. Sano felt its edge slit his right glove while they each hung on and tried to drive the tip through the other. Their legs kicked and scrambled. The blade sank into Sano’s palm. Pain flared. Warm blood spilled.

If he let go, he was dead.

He and Yanagisawa lay on their sides, across the shogun, face-to-face. Sano pushed. Yanagisawa pushed. They gasped and grunted, breathing each other’s breath. Yanagisawa’s bared-teeth grimace was a mirror of Sano’s own. Their bodies were as inseparably close as if they were lovers. Yanagisawa thrust. The tip grazed Sano’s stomach, cut through his robes, and pricked his skin. His muscles contracted as he thrust at Yanagisawa. He saw, at the edge of his vision, that Yoshisato had Masahiro pinned facedown, his knee on Masahiro’s back. Masahiro screamed as he struggled. Terrified that his son would be killed, desperate to be free to rescue him, Sano heaved with all his might. He and Yanagisawa roared as the blade sank into flesh. They both stiffened. Yanagisawa’s face reflected Sano’s surprise. They lay together, unmoving, muscles locked.