Autumn Bridge (40 page)

All such thoughts vanished from Hidé’s mind when he burst from the woods into the clearing beside the monastery. In a few swift moments, he saw several samurai arrayed in a circle around Hanako, saw her cut one down, saw another slash at her, saw a gout of red spray into the air, saw her fall.

“Hanako!”

While Hidé was distracted, Saemon pulled a hidden revolver from inside his jacket. Hidé caught this with his peripheral vision, but not before Saemon drew and fired. He turned to attack Saemon, but stopped when he saw that Genji had not been shot. Saemon had fired at the samurai who had struck Hanako and was about to attack Emily.

That samurai was Taro.

Emily sat in the grass with Hanako cradled in her arms. Hanako’s blood soaked both women’s clothing. Her eyes were open, but they were sightless, and had already lost the brightness that distinguished the living from the dead. Emily was too stunned by the suddenness of her passing to close them — indeed, too stunned to accept that her only friend was gone without even a single, final word of farewell. Next to her, she heard the girl Kimi’s childish voice raised in excited triumph.

“Lord Genji has come! I knew he would. I told the traitors he would, didn’t I?”

“Kimi,” Goro said. “Kimi, Kimi, Kimi—”

Galloping horses came to a halt very close by, and men leaped from the saddles. Emily did not look up. She desperately sought in her heart for a prayer and found
Whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
It was not the right prayer, for Hanako had not believed in Him, but had during her whole life trusted in Amida Buddha, the bringer of boundless compassionate light, and believed not in the Heaven promised by Our Lord and Savior, but in Sukhavati, the Pure Land reserved for Amida’s faithful. Now they were parted forever, without hope of meeting again in the afterlife, for Heaven and Sukhavati could not both exist, nor Jesus Christ and Amida Buddha. Were it not blasphemy, she would wish that the latter were real rather than the former, for it would mean eternal life in paradise for Hanako, and who deserved it more? Emily had never known anyone more fully embodying goodness, charity, and the highest Christian virtues than she.

Genji had arrived. Emily knew this because Kimi and Goro dropped to their knees and pressed their heads against the earth. She felt his hand lightly touch her shoulder.

“Emily,” he said.

During the years of her residence in Japan, her sense of time had changed, gradually, almost imperceptibly, to such an extent that it now bore little similarity to her former perspective. She no longer thought in terms of the passage of days, weeks, months, years, but only of moments, cast seemingly at random across the calendar of the past, gathered together in her memory to provide revelations that would otherwise have passed unnoticed. These gathered moments, harvested like a rare and precious crop, formed her entire knowledge of those closest to her — Heiko, Hanako, and Genji. Were these relationships real or utterly imaginary? Heiko she had last seen six years ago. Hanako was dead. And Genji — did he feel what she thought he felt, what she half feared, half hoped he felt?

“Emily,” Genji said.

She felt his hand on her shoulder, and at last she began to weep.

Genji nodded to Hidé.

He took Hanako’s body from Emily’s arms. He did it as gently as he could. He must have been gentle enough, for she seemed not to notice. Tears fell from her eyes, all the sadder for falling in complete silence. Her chest moved up and down but not even the slightest sigh escaped her lips. Hidé felt great sympathy for Emily. Hanako had been her only friend. Now she was truly alone. His own feelings Hidé suppressed completely. He did not think of his son, now bereft of his mother at such a young age. He did not think of himself, who had lost the one person to whom he could without shame expose his weaknesses and his fears, the one whom he could always trust to be at his side in adversity, the one upon whom he had counted to be his intimate companion until the end of his days. He took Hanako’s body from Emily and bowed low to Genji.

“Lord,” one of his men said. His voice was anguished.

“What are you staring at?” Hidé said harshly. This was no time to indulge in emotions. “Are our lord and Lady Emily sufficiently guarded?”

The man straightened himself into a more martial posture. “Yes, Lord Hidé. And several men are keeping close watch on Saemon.”

Hidé grunted approval. “If any of the traitors are still alive, don’t kill them. They must be questioned.”

“Yes, lord, I have so ordered.”

“Well? Why are you still here?”

“I thought, perhaps—” The man’s eyes went to Hanako.

Hidé said, “I am fully capable of dealing with one corpse. Go.”

The man bowed and departed.

Hidé closed Hanako’s eyes. She was still warm. Though the sky was cloudless, it had begun to rain. He wiped the droplets from Hanako’s face. His hand was so coarse, callused, and roughened by the life of a samurai. How often he had apologized for the harshness of his being. How often she had laughed, and taken his hand in hers, and said, How could I be gentle were you not harsh, soft were you not hard?

His lieutenant dashed back to his side. “Lord Taro still breathes.”

Saemon stared down at Taro and willed him to die. His bullet had not instantly killed his erstwhile ally. Otherwise, his plan had thus far worked to perfection. By drawing Taro into a conspiracy, albeit a false one, he had deprived Genji of one of his most vital retainers, and sowed the seeds of further discontent and suspicion within his clan. It would have been sufficiently effective if Taro had killed Emily, and Genji had killed Taro. But the timing of their arrival had provided Saemon with another, better opportunity. By shooting Taro as he appeared about to strike Emily, he had gained Genji’s gratitude, and perhaps an enhancement of his trust. This had been the essence of Saemon’s plan. His father’s mistake with Heiko had been in trying to put someone next to Genji and have that someone do what was necessary. Saemon had learned from that mistake. The only person he could count on completely was himself, so it must be himself that he placed as close to Genji as he could. Hanako’s demise was an additional benefit, since it distracted and weakened her husband, Hidé, the most stalwart of Genji’s retainers. All his success would evaporate, however, if Taro survived long enough to implicate him.

Hidé knelt down next to Taro.

“Who else?” he said.

For a moment, Saemon thought Taro’s eyes would shift in his direction. That alone would be enough to condemn him. Hidé, already suspicious of him, would not wait for orders or permission. He would simply draw his sword and decapitate him on the spot. But Taro did not move his gaze from Hidé. When he spoke, he said only one word.

“Samurai.”

“I am a samurai,” Hidé said. “You are a traitor. Mitigate your crime. Tell me who else.”

“Samurai,” Taro said again, and died.

“Take his head,” Hidé said to his men. “Leave his body for the peasants to burn.” Six years ago, near this very spot, he and Taro had fought together against hundreds of Kawakami the Sticky Eye’s samurai, and triumphed. Now Taro was dead, a traitor, shot down by Saemon, Kawakami’s son. It did not feel right. It did not feel right at all.

Saemon said, “I regret we did not arrive in time to save Lady Hanako.”

“We were in time to save Lady Emily,” Hidé said, “and put an end to treason. That is sufficient.” He bowed and walked away. Saemon was involved in this. He knew it. But if he was a secret anti-foreign zealot, why did he protect Emily? And if he was part of the plot with Taro, why did he shoot him? Hidé didn’t know. He did know Saemon was a schemer who enjoyed complexities. Nothing he ever did was straightforward. Genji was still in danger.

Saemon was not disturbed in the least by Hidé’s unconcealed suspicion. As the chief lieutenant of a Great Lord, it was among his principal duties to be suspicious, especially of his lord’s closest associates. By definition, betrayals were always perpetrated by those one trusted. It was for precisely that reason that Saemon himself trusted no one but himself. He was among the lesser of the Great Lords, but among them all, he was the only one immune to betrayal.

Genji was making great efforts to effect a reconciliation between the Shogun, who favored accommodation with the outsiders, and the Imperial Court, which favored their immediate and complete expulsion. In this effort, Saemon was Genji’s secret ally. He was also a secret ally of the Men of Virtue, who were zealously dedicated to expelling the outsiders and destroying all those who cooperated with them, be they commoners or lords. These were, of course, contradictory movements that could not both succeed. Saemon intended to be on the winning side, and he intended for Genji to be among the losers, no matter which side won. If that was the Virtuous, then Genji was doomed in any case. If the conciliators won, then Genji could still be undermined in the long run if he were seen by traditionalists to take a leading role in the suppression of the Virtuous. Since he was already despised by many for his incomprehensible determination to lift the sanctions against the outcasts, that would not be difficult to do.

Saemon was a patient man. There was no need for haste. Those who rushed toward their goals often did no more than hurry themselves to their own doom.

Genji left Emily in the care of two of the young women who resided at Mushindo. They would help her bathe and change out of her bloodied clothing. When he stepped out into the courtyard, Farrington and Smith were waiting for him.

“How is she?” Farrington said.

“She is uninjured,” Genji said, “but I would not say she is well. She has just seen her dearest friend killed before her eyes.”

“Wasn’t the murderer one of your samurai?” Smith said. “Taro was his name, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, Taro.”

Farrington said, “Lord Taro was your cavalry commander, was he not?”

“Yes.”

“Why would he want to kill Lady Hanako?” Smith said. He suspected a love affair gone awry. Much as these samurai pretended disdain for women and an unyielding martial discipline, they were men after all, and subject to the passions and follies of all men. He did not exempt himself from his unspoken indictment. His desire for Emily distracted him from the pursuit of cattle, acreage, and trade commodities that would multiply his wealth. In possessing Emily, he would gain no more than that very possession. It was not rational. With women, men were not, more often than they were.