Laura Rowland - The Assassin's Touch

His enemy was a dead man walking, another casualty of his crusade.

Sunrise found Sano at his desk, reading documents by the glow of a lantern that had burned all night. As he affixed his signature seal to a document, he noticed that the crickets had ceased to chirp in the garden outside and birds were singing. He heard chatter and bustle from the servants as his estate awakened to life. Detectives Marume and Fukida entered his office, followed by Hirata and Detectives Inoue and Arai.

“Did you forget to go to bed yesterday?” Marume asked.

Sano yawned, stretched his cramped muscles, and rubbed his bleary eyes. “I had some work to catch up on.”

He’d made barely a dent in the correspondence and reports that had filled up his office while he’d been gone, even though his principal aide Kozawa had dealt with much business. And last night, when he’d briefed Lord Matsudaira on the progress of his investigation, Lord Matsudaira had ordered him to continue giving it top priority. Now Sano wished there were two of him, or more hours in the day.

Kozawa appeared, and Sano gave orders that included postponing all his conferences. He dismissed his aide with instructions to attend to minor matters. Then he explained to Hirata and the detectives his plan for today’s inquiries.

“We’ll focus on identifying people that the victims had contact with but were strangers to them, and finding martial artists who might know dim-mak.” Sano checked the notes that he and Hirata and the detectives had written. “We’ve determined that all the victims spent time outside the castle and administrative district during the two days prior to their deaths. Hirata-san, I want you and your men to go where they went and find out who, if anyone, besides their friends, families and associates, came close enough to touch them.”

He had a disturbing premonition that the killer would strike again unless they worked fast. “Marume, Fukida, and I will go fishing for martial arts experts. I know a good place to start.”

Sano and the detectives rode through a gate into a neighborhood on an edge of the Nihonbashi merchant district. The sentry greeted him by name. The district was populated by families of samurai blood who’d lost their status through war and other misfortunes, merged with the commoners, and gone into trade. He led the familiar way across a bridge that spanned a canal lined with willows. Whenever he came here it seemed as if he’d traveled a great distance. Along the street of modest shops, houses, and food stalls, people smiled and bowed to him. Receiving such courtesies here always made him feel like an impostor. Some of those old folks had once scolded him for making mischief. He passed little boys who were playing and laughing. Had it really been thirty years since he’d been one of them?

He dismounted in a narrow side lane. Fences enclosed the rear lots of businesses and the proprietors’ living quarters. A gate opened. Two women carrying baskets emerged. One was in her fifties, gray-haired and dressed in a plain gray kimono, the other white-haired and elderly. Sano approached them while his men waited down the lane.

“Hello, Mother,” he said.

The gray-haired woman looked up at him in surprise. “Ichirō!” An affectionate smile brightened her lined face.

Sano greeted his mother’s maid and companion, who’d worked for his family since before his birth: “Hello, Hana-san.”

They had just come out of Sano’s childhood home. His father had become a rōnin when the third Tokugawa shogun had confiscated his master Lord Kii’s lands forty years ago, turning the Sano clan and the lord’s other retainers out to fend for themselves. Before his death six years ago, Sano’s father had approached a family connection, called in a favor, and obtained for his only son a post as a police commander. An extraordinary chain of events had led Sano from there to his present station.

“It’s good to see you,” his mother said. “You haven’t been home for more than two months.”

“I know,” Sano said, feeling guilty because he’d neglected his duty to her.

When he’d become the shogun’s sōsakan-sama after a brief stint on the police force, he’d moved to Edo Castle and taken her with him. But the change had upset her so much that Sano had been forced to move her back to the house where she’d spent almost her entire life. Now she lived here contentedly, on the generous allowance he provided.

“How are my grandson and my honorable daughter-in-law?” His mother adored Masahiro, but was awed by Reiko and shy with her. After Sano replied that they were well, she said, “Hana and I were on our way to the market, but we can go later. Come inside and have something to eat.”

“Thank you, but I can’t stay,” Sano said.

She noticed his men waiting on their horses down the street. “Ah. You’re busy. I mustn’t keep you.”

They parted, and Sano walked to the corner. There stood the Sano Martial Arts Academy, which occupied a long, low, wooden building with a brown tile roof and barred windows. Like many rōnin, Sano’s father had been cut loose with no skills except in the martial arts. He’d founded the academy and scratched out a meager livelihood for himself and his family. During Sano’s youth, the school had lacked the prestige to attract samurai from beyond the lower ranks. But today he saw boys and young men who wore the crests of the Tokugawa and great daimyo clans streaming in the door. His name, his high position, and the fact that he’d learned his own acclaimed fighting skills here had boosted the school’s reputation. Now it was one of the top places to train in Edo.

Sano entered the school. Inside the practice room, students dressed in loose cotton trousers and jackets sparred against one another. Amid a din of clacking wooden swords, stamping feet, and battle cries, instructors shouted directions. The sensei, Aoki Koemon, hastened over to Sano.

“Greetings,” he said with a welcoming smile.

He was a stocky, genial samurai, near Sano’s own age of thirty-six. They’d grown up together, and Koemon had once been an apprentice to Sano’s father, who had left the school to him. Sano sometimes envied his friend and childhood playmate the simple life that would have been his if not for his father’s ambitions for him.

Koemon pulled two wooden swords from a rack on the wall. “It’s been ages since you showed up for a practice session. Are you here to make up for lost time?”

“Actually, I’ve come in search of somebody,” Sano said. The school was a gossip center of the martial arts world, and a source of news he’d often plumbed. But when Koemon tossed him a sword, he caught it. They faced off, holding their weapons upright. Sano hadn’t fought a match in more than a month, and the sword felt good in his hands.

“Who is it?” said Koemon as they circled each other and the class continued nearby.

“A martial artist who has the touch of death.” Koemon lunged, whipping his sword in a fast curve. Sano dodged and barely avoided a smack on the hip.

“With all due respect, your reflexes are a lot slower than they used to be,” Koemon said. “I don’t know of anyone who practices dim-mak.”

They resumed circling. “Well, he exists.” Sano launched a series of lashes that Koemon easily parried, while he explained about the murders. “And he’s in Edo.”

“That’s amazing,” Koemon said, then attacked Sano with swift, ferocious swordplay that drove him backward against the wall.

Already breathless from exertion, Sano counterattacked, gained himself room to maneuver, and darted around Koemon. Sweat trickled down his brow as they faced off again. The sword now felt heavy in his hands, which hurt where his calluses had grown soft. “Have you heard of any martial arts masters coming to town?” Perhaps the killer numbered among those rōnin who wandered Japan, fighting duels, teaching lessons, and gathering disciples. There had been legions after the Battle of Sekigahara ninety-four years ago, during which the first Tokugawa shogun Ieyasu had defeated his rival warlords whose armies had then scattered, but their numbers had dwindled over the decades.