Laura Rowland: The Dragon King's Palace

“Come in, Hirata-san,” Sano said. “What is it?”

Entering the room, Hirata said, “A castle messenger just brought word that the shogun has summoned us to the palace.”

“What for?” Sano said, yawning and rubbing his eyes.

“The messenger didn’t know. But it’s an emergency.”

Sano and Hirata looked toward the open window. A warm breeze wafted from the garden, where a gibbous moon floated in a black sky above pine trees and silvered the shrubs and grass. Fireflies winked; crickets sang. The dark hush of the atmosphere signified a time equidistant from midnight and dawn.

“That His Excellency wants us at this hour means the problem must be dire indeed,” Sano said.

As soon as he’d dressed, he and Hirata left the estate and hurried up through the winding stonewalled passages and the security checkpoints of Edo Castle to the palace. Its half-timbered structures and peaked roofs slumbered in the moonlight. Inside the formal audience chamber, Sano and Hirata found an assembly of men waiting.

Guards stood along the walls of the long room, whose floor was divided into two levels. On the lower level knelt a samurai clad in a blue armor tunic that bore the insignia of the Tokugawa highway patrol. On the upper level, in two rows facing each other, knelt the Council of Elders- Japan ’s supreme governing body, comprised of the shogun’s five elderly chief advisors. Beyond them sat Chamberlain Yanagisawa and his lover Police Commissioner Hoshina, to the right of the shogun, who occupied the dais. All wore troubled expressions; everyone silently watched Sano and Hirata approach. The tension in the room was as thick as the smoke that drifted from the metal lanterns hung from the ceiling.

Sano and Hirata knelt on the upper level of the floor at the shogun’s left. They bowed to their lord and the assembly. “How may we be of service, Your Excellency?” Sano said.

Incoherent sputters issued from Tokugawa Tsunayoshi. His refined face was deathly pale and his frail, slender body trembled under his white silk night robe. His usually mild eyes blazed, and Sano realized that he was furious as well as distraught.

“You tell them, Yanagisawa-san,” he said at last.

Chamberlain Yanagisawa nodded. In his beige summer kimono, he looked as suavely handsome as always. His enigmatic gaze encompassed Sano and Hirata. “This is Lieutenant Ibe,” he said, indicating the highway patrol guard. “He has just brought news that His Excellency’s honorable mother was abducted on the Tōkaidō yesterday, along with your wives and mine.”

Shock imploded in Sano. His mind resisted believing what he’d heard. He shook his head while Hirata uttered a sound of vehement denial. But the grave faces of the assembly told them that Yanagisawa had spoken the truth.

“How did this happen?” Sano said, fighting an onslaught of wild anxiety.

“The procession was ambushed on a deserted stretch of road between Odawara and Hakone post stations,” Yanagisawa said.

“Who did it?” Hirata demanded. His face was stricken with terror for Midori and his unborn child.

“We don’t know,” Yanagisawa said. “At present we have no witnesses.”

Sano stared in disbelief. “But there were some hundred attendants in the entourage. One of them must have seen something.”

Police Commissioner Hoshina and the Council of Elders bowed their heads. Yanagisawa said, “The entourage was massacred during the ambush.”

The audacity and violence of the crime struck Sano and Hirata speechless with horror. Sano regretted the deaths of his two detectives. Yanagisawa looked toward the highway patrol guard and said, “Lieutenant Ibe discovered the crime. He shall describe what he found.”

Lieutenant Ibe was a lean, sinewy man in his twenties. His bare arms and legs and his earnest face bore streaks of grime and perspiration from what must have been a swift, grueling ride to Edo. “There were bodies strewn along the road and in the forest,” he said, his eyes haunted by memory of what he’d seen. “They’d died of sword wounds. Blood was everywhere. The baggage seemed untouched-I found cash boxes full of gold coins in the chests. But the palanquins were empty, and the four ladies gone.”

A dreadful thought occurred to Sano. “How can you be sure they were abducted and not-” Killed, he thought, but he couldn’t say it. Hirata emitted a low, involuntary groan.

“We found a letter inside the Honorable Lady Keisho-in’s palanquin,” said the guard.

Chamberlain Yanagisawa handed Sano a sheet of ordinary white paper that had been folded, crumpled, then smoothed. Dirt and blood smeared a message crudely scrawled in black ink.

Your Excellency the Shogun,

We have Lady Keisho-in and her three friends. Let no one pursue us, or we will kill the women. You will be told what you must do to get them back alive. Expect a letter soon.

The message bore no signature. Stunned by fresh shock, Sano passed the letter to Hirata, who read it and gaped in astonishment. Lieutenant Ibe continued, “I fetched officials from Odawara, the last checkpoint that the procession passed. They matched the bodies to the names in the records.”

Checkpoint officials inspected the persons of everyone who passed through their stations, looking for hidden weapons or other contraband. Female inspectors were employed to search the women. Because the Tokugawa restricted the movements of women to prevent samurai clans from sending their families to the countryside in preparation for revolt, the law required female travelers to have travel passes. The officials copied the information on each pass, which listed the social position, physical appearance, and identifying birthmarks or scars of its owner.

“The female inspectors remembered the four ladies well,” said Lieutenant Ibe. “Everyone else was accounted for. The ladies were definitely not among the dead.”

This was inadequate comfort to Sano and Hirata, when their wives’ fate was unknown. They exchanged apprehensive glances.

“One survivor was found,” Police Commissioner Hoshina said. He was broad-shouldered and muscular, with an angular, handsome face. Ambitious to rise in the bakufu-the military government that ruled Japan -he took every opportunity to draw his superiors’ attention to himself. Now he conveyed facts he’d apparently learned from the highway patrol guard before Sano and Hirata arrived: “The officials identified the survivor as Lady Keisho-in’s personal maid, a woman named Suiren. She was badly wounded, and unconscious. Troops are bringing her to Edo. With luck, she’ll be here tomorrow.”

Perhaps she would identify the attackers, but what might happen to Reiko, Midori, Keisho-in, and Lady Yanagisawa in the meantime? Sano stifled his emotions and willed the detective in him to analyze the situation.

“Has the area around the ambush site been investigated for clues to where the kidnappers took the women?” he asked.

“The local police were on their way to the scene when I left,” said Lieutenant Ibe. “They may have found something by now.”

“The women’s guards, and the two detectives we sent, would have fought whoever ambushed the procession,” Hirata said, jittering with his effort to control his distress. “Some of the attackers must have been killed. Were their bodies found and identified?”

“There were signs of a battle, but we found no bodies except those of the ladies’ entourage,” Lieutenant Ibe said regretfully. “If any of the kidnappers died, their comrades removed them from the scene.”

“They massacred the attendants and defeated a squadron of Tokugawa troops. They removed their dead and carried away the four women. And no one saw that? Incredulity lifted Sano’s voice. “At this time of year, the highway is usually crowded with peasants going to market and tourists bound for the hot springs. Where was everybody when the procession was attacked?”