Laura Rowland - The Assassin's Touch

He shook his head in ignorance. Disappointed, Reiko pressed on. “Did you know a girl named Yugao? She was friends with Tama.”

“No…” The maid reconsidered. “Oh, yes, there was a girl who used to come around to visit.” But when Reiko asked her about Yugao’s character and family, she couldn’t provide any information. “Say, why all these questions? Has Tama done something wrong?”

“Not that I know of,” Reiko said, “but I must find her.” Tama seemed Reiko’s only chance at facts that might shed light on the murders. “Where did Tama used to live?”

The maid gave directions to a house some distance away, then said, “Maybe I can find out what happened to her. I can ask around, if you like.” She jingled the money in a pouch she wore on her sash, hinting for a bribe.

Reiko paid her a silver coin. “If you find Tama, send word to Lady Reiko at Magistrate Ueda’s Court of Justice, and I’ll pay you twice as much.”

As she climbed into her palanquin, she told the bearers to take her to the house where Tama had once lived. The time until her father’s deadline was slipping away, and Reiko had an urgent sense that she must discover the truth about the crimes before Yugao was executed, or there would be consequences dire beyond her imagination.

A corridor as dim and dank as an underground tunnel extended past the prison cells in Edo Jail. Down this trudged a jailer who carried a stack of wooden trays that held food. He paused to shove a tray through the slot under each locked door. Uproarious cries from the captives greeted the food’s arrival.

Inside one cell, eight women pounced on their meal like starving cats. They shoved and clawed at one another and shrieked as they fought over rice, pickled vegetables, and dried fish. Yugao managed to grab a rice ball. She fled to a corner of the cell, which was only ten paces square and lit by a tiny barred window near the ceiling, to eat. The other women knelt, gobbling their food. Their hair hung shaggy around their faces; they licked their fingers and wiped them on their dirty hemp robes. Yugao gnawed the tough, gluey rice. How disgusting that a few days in jail had reduced her, as well as her fellow inmates, to wild animals! But she reminded herself that she’d chosen this fate. It was part of her plan. She must, and would, endure.

Finishing her food, Yugao reached for the water jar. But Sachiko, a thief awaiting trial, got to it first. She was a tough, homely girl in her teens who’d grown up on Edo’s streets and lived with a band of gangsters before her arrest. She upended the jar and drank, then fixed a belligerent stare on Yugao.

“What’s the matter?” she said. “Are you thirsty?”

“Give me that.” Yugao snatched at the jar.

Sachiko held it out of her reach and grinned. “If you ask me nicely, I might give you some.”

The other women watched eagerly to see what would happen. They all played up to Sachiko because they were afraid of her. Yugao scorned them for their weakness, and she hated Sachiko. She wouldn’t bow to the bully.

“Don’t annoy me,” Yugao said in a quiet, menacing tone. “I’m a murderess. I killed three people. Give me the water, or I’ll kill you, too.”

Sudden trepidation erased Sachiko’s grin. Yugao knew that her crime, the most serious of all, gave her a special status at the jail. The other women thought she was mad and therefore dangerous. Ever since Yugao had been imprisoned with them, Sachiko had been spoiling for a confrontation, and if she wanted to keep her place as the leader of this cell, she couldn’t let Yugao intimidate her.

“You must think you’re better than the rest of us,” Sachiko said. “I heard the guards say the magistrate delayed the verdict at your trial and they took you out yesterday because he wanted to see you again. What for? Did he make you suck him?”

She pantomimed fellatio and laughed; the other women dutifully laughed with her. “You must not have done it good enough, or he’d have let you off instead of sending you back.”

Anger burned in Yugao, but she knew that Sachiko was jealous of her, with good reason. She, unlike these other sorry creatures, had a chance to avoid punishment. She need only make up a story that someone else had killed her family. That foolish Lady Reiko would believe her and tell the magistrate to set her free. But Yugao wasn’t tempted to take back her confession and bargain for her life. Whether or not they thought she was guilty, she wanted credit for the crime. It was her gift to the person who mattered most in the world to her. How she hated them for trying to trick her into saying too much and betraying him! She hated them for delaying her death sentence and prolonging her stay in this hell. Her resentment toward them enflamed her anger at Sachiko.

“Shut your ugly mouth,” Yugao snapped, “or I’ll shut it for you. Now give me that water.”

“If you want it that bad, you can have it,” Sachiko said disdainfully.

She hurled the water at Yugao. It splashed her face, drenched her robe. Murderous rage filled Yugao. She lunged at Sachiko, and the impact knocked them both to the floor. She pummeled her fists against Sachiko’s face, clawed at her eyes. Sachiko beat Yugao’s head, tore her hair. The other women cried, “Get her, Sachiko! Show her who’s boss!”

Sachiko was bigger than Yugao, and she knew how to fight. Soon she was on top of Yugao. Pinned down, Yugao thrashed, striking out at Sachiko, whose hands grasped her throat. Yugao coughed and choked as Sachiko squeezed the breath from her. But she felt an overriding determination not to die here, in a stupid prison brawl, but to stay alive and receive her rightful death sentence at the execution ground. Her flailing hands found the heavy ceramic water jar. She seized it and bashed Sachiko across the face. Sachiko howled, let go of Yugao, and fell backward. Blood poured from her nose. Yugao flung herself on Sachiko and began beating her head with the jar.

“Stop!” Sachiko cried, sobbing in pain and terror. “That’s enough. You win!”

But a savage lust for violence possessed Yugao. She mercilessly beat Sachiko.

“Get her off me!” Sachiko screamed.

Instead, the other women pounded on the door, calling, “Help! Help!”

Caught up in her madness, Yugao barely heard the iron bars on the outside of the door drop and a jailer say, “What’s going on?” Suddenly the room was full of men. They dragged her off Sachiko, while she shouted and struggled. Sachiko lay moaning; the other women huddled in a corner. Guards dragged Yugao out of the cell.

“We’ll teach you to behave yourself,” said the jailer.

He and the guards pushed her onto her hands and knees in the passage. She fought them, but they held her. They pulled up her robe, and one man knelt behind her. She jerked as his erect organ probed between her buttocks. He plunged into her. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth against the agony. One after another, the men took their turns. Tears streamed down her face. She told herself that this was nothing compared to the disgrace and suffering that he had experienced. She must endure it for his sake, until the time came to die for him.

The distant clanging of a bell impinged on her awareness. She heard one of the guards say, “That’s the fire signal.” The man violating her withdrew himself; the others let go of her. Yugao collapsed onto the floor, gasping. The guards rushed down the corridor. They unbarred and flung open doors, yelling, “Fire! Everybody out!”

Amid cries of fear and excitement, prisoners burst from their cells. They ran down the corridor past Yugao. She smelled smoke from a blaze somewhere nearby. A guard kicked her ribs as he followed the prisoners out of the jail.

“Get up and go unless you want to burn to death,” he said.