Laura Rowland: The Ronin’s Mistress

“Wait!” Sano called.

Yoritomo reached the door and opened it. Daylight shone in. Reiko heard a roar of voices rise as Yoritomo led Kajikawa and the shogun outside. Another roar came from behind her and Sano and Masahiro. Reiko turned and saw Yanagisawa hobbling down the corridor. Somehow he’d gotten free. While she and Sano and Masahiro labored toward the door, Yanagisawa was in hot pursuit.

Breathless and sweating, Hirata arrived at the palace to find a noisy, agitated mob outside and hear the words that passed from one person to another: “Kajikawa is holding the shogun hostage!” He pushed through the mob and came up against a ring of troops stationed some twenty paces from the palace. They spread their arms to prevent people from moving closer.

“Stand aside!” Hirata shouted at the nearest guard.

The guard recognized him but didn’t budge. “My orders are to keep everybody away from the palace. If you go in there, you could get the shogun killed.”

A cry went up from the crowd: “Somebody’s coming out!”

The palace door opened. Guards drew their bows, aimed arrows at it. Yoritomo stepped onto the veranda. His face blanched with terror. His hands flew up.

“Don’t shoot!” he cried. “His Excellency is coming!”

The shogun stumbled out the door. The crowd gasped. His knees buckled; his feet dragged; his eyes rolled. His hands clawed at an arm clamped across his chest. The arm belonged to Kajikawa, who walked behind him. They looked like a Bunraku puppeteer and puppet-a puppeteer who held a sword against his living puppet’s throat. Kajikawa’s expression was defiant as he pushed the shogun forward. The guards lowered their bows. Apprehension chased through Hirata.

Kajikawa was insane. He would never survive this. Neither might the shogun. And what had become of Sano?

Yoritomo descended the stairs, his hands raised in supplication. “Kajikawa wants to leave the castle. You have to let him go, or he’ll kill His Excellency!”

People moaned, exclaimed, and passed the news to others behind them. Guards frantically conferred among themselves, trying to figure out what to do. Hirata seized control.

Shouting, “Clear a path!” he plowed through the mob, pushing people right and left. Troops hurried to help. A path opened from the palace to the gate. Troops held back the mob while Hirata stood at the edge of the path, ready to grab Kajikawa when he passed. With Yoritomo leading the way, Kajikawa lugged the shogun down the stairs. Anxious murmurs swept the audience. Yoritomo drifted sideways and lagged behind Kajikawa. Kajikawa dragged the shogun across the empty space around the palace.

They’d traversed half the distance, when four figures burst out the door.

The first figure was Sano, followed by Masahiro and Reiko. The last was Yanagisawa. The crowd roared.

“Kajikawa!” Sano ran down the stairs.

Kajikawa half turned but kept walking.

“Don’t do this. Let His Excellency go.” Sano gestured toward the troops, the mob. “Wherever you go, this is what you’ll meet. You won’t get away.”

Kajikawa seemed to notice the pandemonium for the first time. Fear cracked the shell of his defiance. He paused. Reiko descended the stairs with Masahiro; they stopped at the bottom, her arm around him. Yanagisawa clutched the railing and panted, out of breath.

Suddenly Hirata felt the familiar aura. He looked across the cleared path. Tahara, Deguchi, and Kitano stood in the crowd on the other side. They returned his gaze, impassive. A movement on the periphery of his vision turned Hirata’s head. He saw Yoritomo stoop to pick up something from the ground. It was a branch. Yoritomo raised it in both hands as he sneaked up behind Kajikawa. His expression wavered between terror and determination. Hirata’s gaze homed in on the branch like a falcon sighting a sparrow aloft in a vast sky. The branch was black, as long and almost as thick as a man’s arm. It was coated with ice from the storm. Hirata recognized the kink near the end where Yoritomo gripped it. A broken-off stub protruded above Yoritomo’s hands.

The branch was the one Tahara had thrown.

Flabbergasted, Hirata looked at Tahara, Deguchi, and Kitano. They were intently watching Yoritomo.

Cheers blared as the crowd noticed Yoritomo preparing to attack Kajikawa. Kajikawa frowned, puzzled and suspicious. Yoritomo was within striking distance when Kajikawa turned, slewing the shogun around with him. Kajikawa saw Yoritomo ready to bring the branch down on his head. Surprise and dismay appeared on both men’s faces. Kajikawa flailed his sword at Yoritomo. It seemed more reflex than deliberate. Yoritomo had no time to dodge or strike back. The blade swiped the left side of his throat.

The crowd’s cheers deepened into groans. Shock altered Hirata’s perception. Time seemed to slow down, as if cosmic forces had stayed its flight.

Sano’s expression filled with horror. His lips parted. He uttered words that were drawn out like the sonorous notes from a war trumpet, unintelligible.

The cut on Yoritomo’s throat was a thin red line that broadened like a river during the rainy season. Blood spurted, gushed, and stained his clothes. His eyes and mouth opened wide. Pain twisted his features. He let go of the branch. It drifted downward through the air, like a feather, while his arms fell to his sides and his legs gave way. A dull sheen spread over his gaze. He crumpled to the ground. The branch landed, bouncing twice before it came to rest.

Reiko pressed her hand to her mouth. Beside her, holding a dagger, Masahiro gaped. Kajikawa’s mouth flexed, forming a smile, then a downturned grimace, smile, then grimace, childlike glee, then ghastly horror. His arm around the shogun loosened. The shogun collapsed like bamboo blinds folding.

A loud bellow, as if from a wounded animal, drowned out the exclamations from the crowd. Yanagisawa staggered down the steps and dropped beside his son. He hauled Yoritomo into his lap. He shouted into Yoritomo’s lifeless face.

Hirata was dumbstruck by the consequences of a trivial action, a branch selected at random and casually tossed. The crowd heaved around him, buffeting him, squeezing him, in a wave of mass shock. He turned to the secret society.

Tahara smiled, as if to say, I told you so.

* * *

“Yoritomo!” Yanagisawa shouted, cradling his son in his arms. “Yoritomo!”

Dread was a cold iron cage crushing his ribs, his heart. Nobody else spoke. A hush fell over the crowd. The only sound was water dripping. The ice on the trees and palace roofs had begun to melt.

Yanagisawa patted Yoritomo’s cheeks, which had turned pale. Horror sickened him. He pressed against Yoritomo’s neck in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding. “Speak to me!”

Yoritomo didn’t speak or move. Yanagisawa saw nothing but the reflection of his own terrified face in his son’s opaque eyes. Yoritomo was dead.

“No!” Yanagisawa cried.

Disbelief and denial passed in an instant.

All meaning, hope, and happiness in his life vanished.

Grief assaulted Yanagisawa like a storm that exploded up from the depths of his spirit. Past concerns suddenly seemed trivial. He didn’t care that he’d lost his advantage over his enemies, his potential heir to the Tokugawa regime, his chance to rule Japan. All he wanted was his son back, his beautiful, beloved Yoritomo alive again. But all his power, all his clever scheming, couldn’t resurrect the dead. Yanagisawa threw back his head and howled.

Through the storm of his grief screamed a primitive desire for revenge, for someone other than himself to blame.

* * *

Sano stared, open-mouthed with shock, at Yanagisawa and Yoritomo.

He’d never expected Yoritomo to try a sneak attack on Kajikawa. He’d thought Yoritomo was too timid. That the young man had found the courage! That it had been so foolhardy! Pity and regret pained Sano. He wondered what he could have done differently, and he cursed himself for letting this happen.