Laura Rowland: The Incense Game

“I’m bored,” the shogun announced. “Somebody read to me.”

The twins took turns reading aloud from a book of poems. They faltered and made mistakes. Masahiro winced.

“Enough!” the shogun cried. “I can’t bear to listen to you mangle fine literature!” The twins fell silent. “Why am I surrounded by idiots?”

Everyone looked at the floor while he began ranting. No one dared say a word. Into the room shuffled Lord Ienobu, the shogun’s nephew. He climbed onto the dais, knelt, took the book from the twins, and said, “Please allow me, Honorable Uncle.”

His voice was raspy, but he read every word perfectly. The shogun nodded, appeased. The sight of the hunchback with the ugly, toothy face gave Masahiro the same creepy feeling he got when he saw a toad. Ienobu flicked his gaze around the room, as if looking for prey to eat. Masahiro sat still and quiet among the other boys. He reminded himself of his father’s advice. He must avoid standing out, even if it killed him.

“I’ll pay my call on Lord Hosokawa,” Sano said to Hirata as they stood by the bodies on the ground by the sunken house. “You take the women to Edo Morgue.”

Hirata understood that Sano wanted the bodies examined by his friend Dr. Ito, the morgue custodian. Dr. Ito would use his scientific expertise to determine the cause of death. But Sano couldn’t say that in public. Nor could he personally seek Dr. Ito’s advice.

An empty oxcart rolled by. Hirata beckoned the driver, a tough peasant youth. The townsmen left their sick comrade and wrapped the bodies in hemp sacking, then loaded them into the open cart. Hirata mounted his horse. As he rode off leading the oxcart, he saw Sano watching him and felt a stab of guilt. He remembered how often he’d shirked his duties during the past year. He guessed that Sano didn’t believe the excuses he made; he understood that Sano was making allowances for him that other masters wouldn’t. He knew he should tell Sano the truth about what he was up to and face the consequences, but the time never seemed right.

While he traveled through the city, Hirata noticed soldiers patrolling on foot rather than horseback. Hundreds of horses had been killed by the earthquake or injured so badly they’d had to be put down, their carcasses cremated. Hirata saw an ash heap littered with their blackened skeletons; he smelled rotting and burned flesh. He also observed things that were beyond ordinary human perception.

His training in the mystic martial arts had sharpened his senses until he could see the cracks in the walls of Edo Castle as if they were as close as his hand, smell the green life dormant in winter mountain forests, and hear a man across town coaxing another man to invest in a scheme for buying liquor in Osaka and selling it for a huge profit in Edo. He could taste salt from the ocean far down past the mouth of the Sumida River, and feel against his cheeks the minute, invisible dust particles in the air. He could also sense the auras of living things, the energy that their bodies emitted. Each human had a unique aura that signaled his personality, health, and emotions. The landscape of Hirata’s mind hummed, blazed, and crackled with the auras from the city’s million people. He could pick out those that belonged to people he knew, and the misery-laced, fading energy of victims trapped in earthquake rubble. That plus his supernatural strength had made him useful in search and rescue. A part of him always remained on alert for one particular aura-the conjoined energy from the three fellow disciples of Ozuno, his teacher. Hirata never knew when they would show up, and he was always on his guard in case they did.

He followed a dirty track through the slums of Odenmacho, which were carpeted with the remains of flimsy hovels once occupied by Edo’s poorest citizens. Emaciated men, women, and children crowded around fires. Haunted eyes gazed at Hirata from grimy faces. Suddenly Hirata felt the aura, a mighty, booming pulsation that countered the rhythm of his heart and tingled along every nerve. Its force made the air ring and shimmer like shattered crystal. His hand flew to the sword at his waist at the same time he fought instinctive terror and the urge to run. He reined in his horse, jumped down from the saddle. The cart driver halted his two oxen and beheld Hirata with puzzlement.

Three men appeared, some fifty paces away, as if they’d materialized out of the bonfire smoke. Side by side, they moved toward Hirata. Although they strolled at a leisurely pace, they covered the distance so fast that they arrived in an instant. Their aura dissipated as if sucked inside them by a vacuum. They, unlike other people, could turn it on and off. They stood before him, two samurai and a priest.

“Surprise,” the samurai in the middle said. With his athletic physique and strong, regular features, he looked the perfect samurai. His flowing dark gray coat and trousers swirled around him in a wind of his own creation. A twinkle in his deep black eyes, and a left eyebrow that was higher than the right, gave him a rakish charm.

“Greetings, Tahara- san,” Hirata said.

Tahara was the trio’s leader, the one Hirata feared most, although he was almost as afraid of the others. They were the only men in Japan capable of defeating him in combat. His friendship with them felt as hazardous as holding a wasp in his mouth.

“Fancy running into you,” Hirata said. “I haven’t seen you in, what, seven days?”

“Eight.” Tahara’s eyes twinkled brighter: He knew that Hirata knew the exact length of the time since their last meeting. “Sorry to make myself so scarce.” His voice had a curious quality that was at once smooth and rough, that brought to mind a stream flowing over jagged rocks. “I’ve been busy guarding the Tokugawa rice warehouses.” His clan were retainers to the daimyo of Iga Province, known for its tradition of mystic martial arts practiced by the ninja, a cult of peasant warriors adept at stealth. The daimyo had loaned Tahara to the government for security work.

“Pity the poor thief who tries to get past you,” Hirata said.

Tahara, who could kill a man as quickly and effortlessly as look at him, shrugged with a modest smile.

Hirata turned to the other samurai. “What have you been up to, Kitano- san?”

“Leading Lord Satake’s fire brigade.” Kitano Shigemasa was a retainer to Lord Satake. He wore the iron helmet and armor tunic of a soldier. Although he was in his fifties and gray-haired, his figure was robust. His eyes crinkled as if in a smile, but the rest of his face, a mesh of scars, remained immobile. As a youth, he’d been wounded in a drunken brawl, his face badly cut. The cuts had damaged his facial nerves. “Can’t let the rest of Edo burn down.”

The government delegated the responsibility for fighting fires to the daimyo, whose efforts had proved woefully inadequate during the earthquake. Since then, they’d much increased their manpower and vigilance.

“And you, Deguchi- san?” Hirata turned to the third man.

Deguchi was a Buddhist priest from the Z o j o Temple district. His maroon cloak covered a saffron-dyed robe. His shaved head was bare. Thirty years old, he could pass for twenty or forty. Although his long, oval face was plain-the eyes heavily lidded, the nose flat, and mouth pursed-he had a haunting, luminescent beauty. His eyes glowed as they met Hirata’s.

“He’s been giving charity to the earthquake victims,” Kitano said. Deguchi never spoke; he was mute. Tahara had explained to Hirata that Deguchi was an orphan who’d lived on the streets, working as a prostitute. A customer had strangled him and damaged his throat.

And Hirata had been wounded in the leg and crippled when he’d taken a blade for Sano. He and Deguchi and Kitano had something in common-a life-changing injury. Ozuno had helped them overcome their handicaps. Hirata couldn’t tell what, if any, injury Tahara had sustained.