Laura Rowland: The Fire Kimono

Yoritomo addressed the man whose opinion was the one that really mattered. “Your Excellency, I’ve never seen any of those people before in my life. I didn’t do what they said I did. They’re all liars. I’m being framed. I swear I’m innocent!”

His voice rose on a high, unnatural note and broke. He was a terrible liar. Sano felt the sentiment in the audience weighing further against Yoritomo. But the shogun leaned toward his lover, his eyes filled with pain, pity, and yearning.

Hirata slipped his hand under the shogun’s sleeve and closed his fingers around the shogun’s wrist. No one noticed except Sano. The shogun stiffened, coerced into playing along with this game Sano had staged.

“I swear that girl isn’t my lover,” Yoritomo declared. “I’ve never spoken to her, never touched her. I’ve never looked at anyone else since I met you, Your Excellency. I’ve never been unfaithful or disloyal. After everything you’ve given me, I would never plot behind your back to seize power from you!” His voice wavered with a blend of truth and falsehood. “Please have mercy!”

As the assembly watched in suspense, the shogun looked miserable. He chewed his lip, then said, “Chamberlain Sano-”

Hirata squeezed the shogun’s wrist. The shogun jerked and grimaced. The resistance leaked out of him, drained by the pressure Hirata had applied to a nerve junction. “Proceed,” he said dully.

“Your word isn’t enough to prove your innocence,” Sano told Yoritomo. “Can you offer any evidence or witnesses?”

“How could I?” Yoritomo demanded, angry as well as terrified. “You’ve given me no time to gather any!”

That had been one point of rushing him to trial: Sano wanted no challenge to the verdict. The other point was that Sano wanted to set events in motion as quickly as possible.

“Then I must pronounce you guilty of treason,” Sano said.

Yoritomo lifted his face skyward, his eyes and mouth wide open, as if asking the gods to explain how this fate could befall him and praying for rescue. The audience’s faces and murmurs expressed satisfaction. The shogun buried his face in his hands and wept.

“I sentence you to death by decapitation,” Sano said.

The audience buzzed with surprise. Samurai weren’t usually executed for crimes, not even for treason, the worst. They had the right to commit ritual suicide and redeem their honor. But that wouldn’t serve Sano’s purposes.

Yoritomo didn’t object or weep. His eyes flashed Sano one last hurt look, then went opaque as he withdrew into himself. He sat upright, head high, shoulders squared, courageously accepting his fate. Sano had to admire him. The young man had dignity despite his life as a political pawn. Sano tasted guilt, sour as bile, for tormenting this young man who was as much a victim as a genuine traitor.

“You shall be executed at Kotsukappara tomorrow at noon,” Sano announced.

That should give his publicity campaign enough time to work.

Reiko lay on her back, eyes half open, floating on the surface of sleep. Her body relaxed, but her mind was alert to the world around her. As a mother she excelled at napping while awake. When Masahiro had been a baby and gotten sick, she’d rested beside him at night, ready to spring to action at his faintest cry. Now she applied her talent to the purpose of guarding her children’s lives.

She could hear their breathing as they slept in the bed with her. She heard the wind rustling the trees outside, the voices and footsteps of the patrol guards, and a dog howling in the distance. The house was quiet. All was well… for now.

In the distance, beyond the range of Reiko’s hearing, the floor in the passage creaked softly under stealthy footsteps.

Night thinned the crowds in the Ginza district. The theaters closed their doors; the actors, musicians, and patrons headed home. The wind swept paper flowers from costumes, crumpled handbills, and sunflower-seed shells along the streets. People in search of more entertainment repaired to the teahouses.

In the room behind the teahouse with the red lanterns hanging from its eaves, Yanagisawa hunched over the charcoal brazier. The wind whistled through cracks in the walls, and the room was freezing. He listened to the customers making bets, arguing, cursing, and slapping down cards, the rattle of dice, the wine splashing into cups, the discordant samisen music. He fretted with impatience.

Yesterday Lord Arima had followed his orders and told the shogun that Lord Matsudaira was trying to seize power. The results had delighted Yanagisawa. He’d gloated over Yoritomo’s descriptions of Lord Matsudaira stunned, frantic, and put under house arrest. He’d savored his own cleverness.

But that was the last news he’d heard. Today his troops should have attacked the shogun’s army while wearing the Matsudaira crest. The shogun’s allies should have interpreted the attack as a strike by Lord Matsudaira and pressured the shogun to declare war. Had it happened yet? Yanagisawa fumed. Why hadn’t Yoritomo come with good tidings?

The maid sauntered into the room. She carried a tray, which she plunked down beside Yanagisawa. The tray held his dinner of soup, rice balls, pickles, and grilled fish. By the food lay a folded paper.

“The boss thought you should see this.” The maid pointed at the paper, then left.

Yanagisawa read the paper, an announcement torn off a public notice board. The shogun’s companion, Yanagisawa Yoritomo, has been arrested for treason. His trial will take place tonight at the hour of the dog. If he is pronounced guilty, he will be put to death at the Kotsukappara execution ground at noon tomorrow.

“No!” Disbelief and shock punched the breath out of Yanagisawa. Here was the reason Yoritomo hadn’t come. Yanagisawa reread the notice, seeking an explanation of why his son was suspected of treason and who had arrested Yoritomo. But the space between the lines remained maddeningly blank.

Yanagisawa’s heart drummed in his ears, pumping currents of panic through his body. Had someone found out that he’d returned from exile? If so, who? Had whoever it was also discovered that Yoritomo was conspiring to put his father back in power?

Whatever the answers the trial would have been finished hours ago. It would surely have ended in a guilty verdict, as most trials did. The thought of his son imprisoned, alone, and terrified, helplessly awaiting death, made Yanagisawa shout in rage. He crumpled the notice, flung it across the room, and jumped to his feet. He must take action.

A premonition of danger startled Reiko. She bolted upright, fully awake, her heart racing. A strangled cry sounded in the darkness. The door slid open, and she saw the figure of a man enter the room. The faint light that shone through the paper-paned lattice wall glittered on the blade in his hand. Reiko instinctively snatched up her own sword. As the man loomed over her, she thrust the weapon at him with all her might.

A grunt like that of a wounded animal erupted from him. He thudded across her legs. Masahiro woke up and cried, “Mama!”

The man writhed on the bed, atop Reiko and Midori and Akiko. She smelled his leather armor, sour breath, and sweat. Midori said, “What?” in a sleepy voice. Akiko began to keen. Reiko saw the man thrashing. Her sword protruded from his belly.

“Mama, you got him!” Masahiro shouted.

But the man raised himself. His hand still held his dagger. He lunged at Masahiro, weapon raised. Masahiro yelled. Reiko sprang up and grabbed the assassin’s wrist. They fell onto Akiko and Midori.

“What’s going on?” Midori said as Reiko fought with the assassin. Akiko began to cry. “Who is that?”

The man was too big and muscular for Reiko to overcome. He threw her off him as if she weighed nothing. When she leaped at him again, he backhanded her jaw.