Laura Rowland - The Snow Empress

She followed a path to three small thatched sheds. She went inside one, raised her robes, and squatted over the pit. It took only a few moments, but she was shivering and her bottom felt like ice when she’d finished. Outside, she met Sano.

“Good morning,” he said with a smile. “I’m sorry if I woke you. I tried to be quiet so you could sleep a little longer.”

“That’s all right,” Reiko said. “I was ready to get up. When can we go find Masahiro?”

“As soon as I can persuade our hosts to give us breakfast and point us toward Fukuyama City.”

When they returned to the settlement, they found Ezo men gathering firewood from piles, filling buckets with snow to melt for water, and fetching food from raised storehouses. Suddenly they all froze motionless, as if on some silent command. Then Reiko heard what their keen ears already had-the distant barking of dogs, coming closer.

The dogs in the settlement growled in reply. Reiko heard crashes, rustles, and a scraping, whizzing noise from the forest. Down a path came ten hounds, each harnessed to a wooden sled. On each sled sat a samurai, driving his dog like a horse. The men wore swords at their waists, bows and quivers full of arrows on their fur-clad backs, and leather helmets. At first Reiko was glad for this sign of Japanese civilization, but as the dogsleds burst into the camp, Sano reached for his sword. Hirata, the detectives, and the Rat rushed from their hut, alarmed because they’d sensed a threat. The Ezo men grouped together, bracing for an attack.

I have a feeling that getting to Fukuyama City isn’t our biggest problem,“ Sano said.

The riders were youths in their late teens, led by one who wore deer antlers on his helmet. Sano supposed they were Matsumae soldiers, they’d found the wrecked ship on the beach, and they’d come looking for survivors. The riders steered their sleds up to Sano’s party and reined in their dogs, who halted and panted, muzzles dripping icicles, teeth sharp.

“There’s too many of them to take back to the castle and execute,” Deer Antlers said as he and his comrades jumped off their sleds. “Let’s kill them here.”

Sano realized that the trouble in Ezogashima had come straight to him. “Stop right there,” he said.

They ignored his order and advanced on him. Detective Marume said, “It’s been a while since I’ve had a good fight.”

He drew his sword. Fukida and Hirata followed suit. The samurai aimed bows fitted with sharp, deadly arrows at them.

“Drop your weapons!” Deer Antlers said. He had thick features set in a cruel, hungry grin. “Line up in a row. Prepare to die.”

Reiko moaned softly, but she held her dagger in her hand. Sano knew that although he and his comrades could probably take these men, there were too many more where they’d come from; he’d better stop the fight before it started. He said, “I’m the chamberlain of Japan. Put down your bows and kneel.”

Deer Antlers aimed at Sano and said, “Shut up! Do as I said.” But his friends gaped at Sano, exchanged glances of dismay, and lowered their bows.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” Deer Antlers said. “We have our orders. Shoot them!”

“Orders from who?” Sano asked.

“Lord Matsumae.”

“I outrank him. You’ll follow my orders, not his.” Sano spoke with all the authority he could muster.

Nine bowstrings went slack. Deer Antlers said, “Don’t listen to him!”

His friends objected: “He’s too important to kill.” “We’ll get in trouble.”

“I’m here on the shogun’s business,” Sano said. “Hurt me or anyone with me, and you’re dead.”

“We’ll get in trouble if we don’t kill him,” Deer Antlers said, his arrow trained on Sano. “Lord Matsumae will kill us.”

One of his men said, “Then you shoot him. When he doesn’t come home, when the shogun’s army comes up here to see what happened to him and finds out he’s been killed, we’ll say you did it.”

Deer Antlers hesitated, torn between murder and fear of punishment. His eyes shifted, seeking a compromise in which he wouldn’t lose face.

Sano said, “Let’s go to Fukuyama Castle and sort this out.”

“All right.” Deer Antlers scowled. “But hand over your weapons first.”

Although Sano hated to be disarmed, he nodded at his group. Carrying their possessions in bundles, they marched along the road, the ten samurai riding the sleds behind them, dogs panting at their heels. Gaps between the trees showed glimpses of the ocean, brilliant blue and crusted with ice at the shoreline. The clear air was bitterly cold despite the sun, but Sano began to sweat from trudging through the deep snow. Reiko lagged, and he pulled her along. At least the exercise kept them warm.

“You’ll all be sorry we came,” the Rat muttered.

Sano wondered what was waiting for them at Fukuyama Castle. There was no plotting strategy without some idea of the circumstances. “Why does Lord Matsumae want us dead?” he called over his shoulder.

“Shut up,” came Deer Antlers’ peevish voice.

“What’s the matter with him?” Just keep moving.“

More questions brought Deer Antlers riding up close behind Sano. Dogs leaped on Sano’s back and knocked him into the snow. Hirata helped him to his feet and dusted him off.

After almost an hour, Fukuyama City came into view. It was built on a harbor where ships stood in dry-dock near warehouses. Wisps of smoke rose from what looked like a small, fortified Japanese town. Snow-covered buildings clustered around the castle that squatted on a rise. Beyond town spread Ezogashima’s vast forests, the distant mountains fading blue into the sky. Southward, the ocean stretched, blank and boundless.

Their escorts goaded Sano and his group past a military checkpoint. The abruptness with which they entered town unsettled Sano. The distance had seemed greater-a strange illusion. Along a main street, dingy wooden buildings contained shops. Merchants shoveled snow off their doorsteps. Sano didn’t see any women; they were few in these parts. He heard a gong tolling nearby, then realized that the sound came from a temple he could barely see perched on a high, faraway hill. An unusual quality of the air warped sound as well as sight. It gave Sano a disquieting sense that nature’s usual rules didn’t apply in Ezogashima.

“Everyone here is Japanese,” Reiko commented softly.

“The law bans Ezo from the city,” Sano explained.

Samurai patrolled on foot, outnumbering the commoners, who kept their heads down, fearful of attention. Sano had the impression of a city clamped down even tighter under martial law than at home. He thought to wonder what the Ezo he’d met were doing around here at all. The Ezo came from their villages in the interior to live in the settlement during the trading season, spring through autumn only. Here was another strange circumstance.

The procession mounted the rise to the castle. It was similar to Edo Castle, enclosed by a high stone wall topped with covered corridors and a guardhouse built over the ironclad gate, but on a smaller, lower scale. Its few peaked roofs seemed to sag under their weight of snow. Pine trees and a keep rose above them. Deer Antlers ran up to the two guards pacing outside the gate. They argued about what to do with their prisoners, until a guard said, “Take them to Lord Matsumae.”

Marched through the gate, Sano found himself in a courtyard facing run-down barracks. More samurai guards loitered outside. As Deer Antlers led the way through a gate to the inner precinct, he called to a guard and pointed at Reiko.

“Take her to the women’s quarters.”

Reiko looked aghast at the thought of being separated from her group. Sano said, “No. She stays with us.”