Laura Rowland - The Ronin’s Mistress

Lord Hosokawa called his troops to take charge of the prisoners. Hirata glanced at the faces of the men who led the prisoners away. Some regarded the ronin with disgust, others with awe at these men who had followed Bushido to the ultimate degree. Hirata saw a storm brewing, the forty-seven ronin at the center, and spectators already taking sides.

“Behave yourselves,” he told the ronin.

“We will,” Oishi said, quiet and stern.

Hirata and his troops had mounted their horses to ride back to town, when Hirata felt a strange, tingling sensation. Then came a force that pulsated through the cold air, that boomed in counter-rhythm to his heartbeat. His whole body tensed with recognition and fright. It was the energy aura he’d last encountered two years ago.

His stalker had finally returned.

Hirata resisted two opposing urges-to draw his sword for combat or drop flat on the ground and cover his head. Instead, he called to the troops, “Go ahead.” He had to face his stalker alone and not endanger the men. “I’ll catch up.”

They went. Hirata sat astride his horse and swept his gaze over the scene. He saw the glare of sun on snow and the white plaster wall of the estate across the street. Passersby glanced at him curiously, but none with malevolent intent. The aura seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. It began to fade. Hirata saw a movement to his left-a redness like a splash of blood. He whirled.

It was a strip of red paper stuck on a spiky bush near the Hosokawa gate. Hirata could have sworn that it hadn’t been there a moment ago. It fluttered in the wind. Hirata leaped off his horse and snatched the paper. It was clean and neatly cut, not a torn scrap of garbage. Figures written in elegant black calligraphy graced one side. Hirata read,

Sunlight illuminates the darkness inside a black cave.

What you seek has already found you.

Seek no further.

Hirata puzzled over the cryptic message. Was it for him, from his stalker? If so, what did it mean?

Someone came up behind him and tapped his shoulder. Hirata started violently. He turned. The man he saw was a soldier dressed in an iron helmet and a tunic made of iron plates covered with leather and laced together, standard military gear. A scarf muffled the soldier’s face up to the nose. His eyes crinkled with amusement.

Hirata drew his breath to speak. In that instant the soldier vanished, then reappeared halfway down the street. He held Hirata’s gaze for another instant, then turned and walked away. Hirata hurried after him. A squadron of mounted samurai emerged from a gate and blocked Hirata’s path. By the time Hirata got around them, the soldier was nowhere in sight.

When Sano, Marume, and Fukida arrived at Edo Castle, soldiers loitered outside, avidly reading news broadsheets. The broadsheets were illustrated with a crude drawing of the forty-seven ronin on the march, carrying Kira’s head on a spear. At the palace, Sano found the very same broadsheet in the shogun’s private chambers.

The shogun held a copy above his face while he lay on his back in bed. His robe was open, his naked torso exposed. A physician rubbed spice-scented oil on the shogun’s stomach. Chamberlain Yanagisawa, Yoritomo, and two men from the Council of Elders-Sano’s friend Ohgami and enemy Ihara-knelt around the shogun, twisting into awkward postures, trying to read the broadsheet. Yoritomo read aloud, “A hundred savage ronin broke into the estate of the shogun’s master of ceremonies. They cut off his head and massacred everybody else.”

Yanagisawa and the elders listened with concern. The shogun exclaimed, “This is even worse than I feared! Can it be true?”

Yanagisawa noticed Sano standing at the threshold. His eyes narrowed. “Here’s the man who should be able to tell us.”

“There were forty-seven ronin, not a hundred,” Sano said. “They spared the women, children, and servants.”

“How nice of them.” Sarcasm didn’t improve the looks of Elder Ihara’s monkey face.

Yoritomo started reading a gory description of the murder. The shogun said, “Stop right there, or I’ll be sick!” and flung away the broadsheet.

The physician lit a candle and waved the flame inside several bamboo cups, which he placed upside down on the shogun’s stomach. This was an ancient Chinese medical treatment that promoted the flow of life energy through the body. The vacuum inside the cups drew blood to the areas underneath. The suction penetrated the tissues and released poisons. The position of the cups told Sano that the shogun was suffering from constipation again. The shogun was always suffering from something, always threatening to die. So far so good, but he had gotten frail. Maybe he would die soon, without a son or designated heir. And then would follow the battle over the succession.

“What are you doing back so soon?” Yanagisawa asked Sano. “Shouldn’t you be out chasing the forty-seven ronin ?”

“I’ve already captured them,” Sano said.

“Oh.” Yanagisawa looked unpleasantly surprised.

Sano described what had happened after he’d tracked the ronin to Sengaku Temple. Everyone was nonplussed.

“That’s certainly peculiar,” said Elder Ohgami, Sano’s quiet, white-haired friend.

“So the forty-seven ronin surrendered. All you had to do was scoop them up,” Yanagisawa concluded.

“Nevertheless, the crime is solved,” Sano said, controlling his temper. Trust Yanagisawa to minimize his accomplishments. “The forty-seven ronin are under house arrest.”

“Is it all over, then?” the shogun said with cautious hope. The cups attached to him looked like the nubs on a caterpillar.

Swiftly, before Sano could say that it was and parlay his success into a pardon for past offenses, Yanagisawa shot down that hope. “No. It’s certainly not over.”

“Why not?” Anxiety crinkled the shogun’s face. The physician slid the bamboo cups around on his pale, droopy stomach, massaging the organs beneath.

“There’s still the matter of what to do with the forty-seven ronin, ” Yanagisawa said.

“That’s easy. They should be convicted of murder and condemned to death,” Ihara declared. “They sought revenge against Kira after His Excellency ruled that Kira wasn’t at fault in the incident between him and Lord Asano and he shouldn’t be punished. They not only killed a helpless old man in cold blood; they defied His Excellency. It’s standard procedure that anyone who does that automatically pays with his life.”

“This isn’t a standard case,” Ohgami pointed out. “The forty-seven ronin followed the Way of the Warrior. They avenged their lord’s death. Bushido trumps the law in this case.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Yoritomo hastened to protest. “Their ultimate duty is to the shogun. And they went against his orders.”

Sano sensed emotions rising fast among his colleagues. The case had touched a place deep inside them, where their samurai spirit lived. The forty-seven ronin ’s vendetta had raised questions about their own worth as samurai, as it had done for Sano.

Exasperation showed on Ohgami’s face. “Lord Asano was their hereditary master. They were compelled by honor to avenge him, no matter what.”

“Not everyone thinks so,” Ihara said. “Some people are already calling the forty-seven ronin heroes, but others think they’re criminals.”

Sano suspected that those who called the ronin criminals felt guilty about the short shrift that they themselves gave to Bushido. They wanted to punish anyone who made them look neglectful of their own duties. The people who lauded the forty-seven as heroes took a vicarious pride in the deed which they would probably never have the courage to perform themselves. Sano felt torn because he could see both sides of the argument.