Cloud of Sparrows (22 page)

For the five days they’d been in Lord Genji’s palace, he hadn’t touched his guns at all. Half the walls were literally made of paper, and people were always around. The only place he could be sure of privacy was his own mind. So that’s where he practiced.

Draw.

Cock the hammer on the upswing.

Sight the heart.

Squeeze the trigger.

Cock the hammer on the recoil.

Sight the heart.

Squeeze the trigger.

There was an advantage to this. His mind was a portable room, he could practice anywhere he was, anytime.

The samurai who kept watch over him thought he was engaged in prayer or meditation, communing with his God or letting his consciousness release all thoughts, silently repeating mantras like the followers of Amida Buddha, or being one with the void like the practitioners of Zen. Whatever he was doing, it kept him motionless for long stretches of time. The samurai had never before seen an outsider so quiet. He was nearly as still as the rocks he stood among, there in the courtyard garden.

Draw, cock the hammer, sight, fire. Over and over and over. Stark was hard at it in his head when he heard a sharp whistling sound coming his way. He didn’t hear the explosion.

When he opened his eyes, he was in complete silence. It was night. He stood by the doorway and looked into the bedroom. Mary Anne cradled the two children in her arms. Becky and Louise were still little girls, but not as little as they used to be. It was time for the girls to go to their own bed and let him get into his. But mother and daughters looked so serene in their sleep, he couldn’t bring himself to wake them. They were his three beautiful dreamers.

Mary Anne’s eyelids fluttered open. She saw him and smiled. Softly, she said, “I love you.”

Before he could answer, the next explosion knocked him awake. He was flat on his back. More whistling, more blasts followed in quick succession. Shrapnel and debris sliced through the air.

A rain of blood splashed on the ground beside him. Stark looked up. The upper half of the samurai who had been watching him was tangled in the branches of the willow tree. The lower half remained kneeling on the polished wooden walkway.

The smart move was to cover up and stay put. There was no use trying to escape. Which way was safety? But Stark didn’t think about that. He jumped up and ran toward Cromwell’s room. That’s where he had taken Emily only minutes ago, and that’s where Heiko was going when he passed her in the hallway. Emily was the only person left in the world whom he could even call an acquaintance. Without her, he was completely alone. Why Heiko was also on his mind, he didn’t know.

One of the four buildings that had enclosed the courtyard was gone, and a second disintegrated into fire and splintered wood as Stark ran by.

He found the entire guest wing of the palace smashed and burning. Someone had gotten there before him, a burly man already searching intently for survivors.

Kuma, who was the man Stark saw, was interested in only four people. Heiko, to save her if he could. And the three outsiders, to finish them off. The bombardment gave him an opportunity to enter the palace he would not otherwise have had. He didn’t know whose cannons had done the damage, but he was sure it wasn’t the Shogun’s. The Sticky Eye, Kawakami, would have told him in advance if that was the case. So who had dared commit such an act of war without the Shogun’s knowledge or permission? Kuma wondered about it idly as he probed in the rubble. Perhaps the civil war everyone had anticipated for so long had begun at last. Odd, though, that it would commence here at the palaces of the Great Lords in Edo instead of with attacks on castles, key passes, and the two great national highways, the Tokaido along the coast and the Nakasendo through the center of the country. The explosions were moving away to the east, ravaging the palaces of supporters and opponents of the Shogun alike. What a confused time to live in.

Kuma lifted away a fallen beam. Ah, there she was.

“Hei-chan,” Kuma said. Heiko opened her eyes and blinked. Her color was good. A quick check revealed no major bones out of place, and no bleeding. She was probably only dazed. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

“I don’t think so,” Heiko said.

Kuma didn’t realize how much tension was in his body until his shoulders relaxed in relief at Heiko’s words. He had watched her at Sticky Eye’s behest ever since she was brought to the village when she was three years old. Then it had been a job. Through the years, it had become something else. He had decided some time ago that if Sticky Eye ordered him to kill her, he would kill Sticky Eye instead. Indeed, he was ready to kill anyone who was a threat to her. Genji, Kudo, even the Shogun himself. Not a very professional attitude, nor a loyal one, he admitted, but what was he to do? He loved like his most precious child this young woman who was no more than a tool he had helped create.

“Did you set off a bomb?” Heiko asked.

“No. Cannons, I think from the sea.”

“Why? Has war come?”

“I don’t know. Don’t struggle. I’m getting you out.” He carefully shifted the heavy beam away from her. When he did so, he saw strange pale hair spilled across one of Heiko’s arms. The outsider woman. He pulled out his dagger. An inconspicuous slit at the side of her throat and her death would be certain.

Stark was still twenty paces away when he saw the blade. The man appeared ready to cut away some obstruction. Then he turned in Stark’s direction and their eyes met. Stark recognized the look. That was how eyes focused when they sighted down the barrel of a gun.

Kuma let the knife fall from his hand as soon as he saw Stark. He reached for a
shuriken,
a star-shaped throwing knife, hidden in his sash. Twenty paces was somewhat beyond perfect range, but if he missed with the first one, he would connect with the second. He dashed toward Stark, closing the distance between them as he threw.

At the same moment, Stark reached for the .32 caliber revolver concealed in his shirt at his left waist. The constant imaginary gunfights had set a pattern in his body that movements followed without thought. He cross-drew with his right hand and fired less than a heartbeat before the shuriken left Kuma’s hand. Lack of live firing took its toll on his aim. His bullet ricocheted off a rock to the right of Kuma.

The unexpected crack of gunfire disturbed Kuma just enough to make him miss, too. His first shuriken went spinning by Stark’s left shoulder. Still moving toward his target, he drew his second shuriken.

Kuma was far more practiced in his arts than Stark was in his. But it took him a full second to draw his arm back from the first throw, pull another shuriken from his sash, and fling it at Stark. It only took Stark half as long to cock the hammer on the recoil, aim, and squeeze the trigger a second time.

The bullet tore through Kuma’s chest and threw him on his back. The shuriken went high into the air and fell harmlessly in the remnants of the garden.

Stark walked toward the fallen man, ready to fire again. But as he stood over him, Stark saw that he wouldn’t have to use another bullet. He put his gun away and began digging the two women out.

The bombardment was over. In the new dead silence, Stark heard approaching footsteps. He almost drew on the two samurai before he saw who they were.

Genji rode through where the front gate had been. He leaped from his saddle and ran into the rubble toward the center of the palace. Reverend Cromwell had been placed in a room bordering the central garden. Heiko would likely have been nearby.

He was surprised that his first concern was for her. He should be thinking about defense or evacuation. Such a short barrage could easily be followed by the landing of an invasion force. Or he should be thinking about the outsiders, specifically Matthew Stark. He had told Sohaku that the dying preacher, Zephaniah Cromwell, was the one whose arrival was prophesied by his grandfather, but of course, that was not at all what he thought. Genji had known as soon as he’d seen Stark that he was no missionary. He had to be the one his grandfather meant. But searching through the ruins of Quiet Crane, Genji could think of nothing but Heiko.

How dull his life would be without her. Quite apart from the prophecies of his grandfather and his own, as yet unconfirmed, gift of foreknowledge, everyone else he knew was so drearily predictable. The three advisors he had inherited, Saiki, Kudo, and Sohaku, could always be counted on to advocate the least dynamic course of action. Saiki, the eldest, was not yet forty, yet all three behaved like old men. And if a man was to be judged by his enemies as well as his friends, how inadequate must he be to have as his main foe a blithering incompetent like Sticky Eye Kawakami, the Shogun’s spymaster? Did Kawakami really believe Heiko could enter Genji’s bed without arousing suspicion as well as desire? He didn’t have to follow her to know who employed her. It could be no one else. As for love, well, the most beautiful geisha in Edo would hardly let herself fall in love with him unless she had an ulterior motive. Of the sixty truly great Great Lords, at least fifty were richer and more powerful than Genji.

And yet, here he was, his breath shallow, his heart cold, his body numb, fearing the worst, a world without Heiko. How and when had it happened? He hadn’t noticed. The most important person in his life was a woman who was surely a spy, and almost surely an assassin as well.

“Lord!” Saiki stumbled out of a half-collapsed room, bleeding from a small cut on his forehead. “You should not be here. The enemy may resume firing at any time.”

“Where’s Heiko?” Genji said. The pounding of the blood in his ears was as loud as cannon fire. He ran toward the shattered guest wing and climbed over a collapsed walkway just in time to see a fat man he didn’t recognize fling two spinning star blades at Stark. Stark drew a hidden pistol, fired even faster than the ninja threw, and dropped the fat man with his second shot.

“Was that gunfire?” Saiki scrambled up next to him.

“Come on,” Genji said, “I think Stark found her.”

“Hei-chan.” Heiko heard her name and opened her eyes. She saw Kuma’s comforting face looking down at her. Behind him was the open sky. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

“I don’t think so,” Heiko said.

Kuma smiled and began shifting pieces of the building off her.

“Did you set off that bomb?” Heiko asked.

Kuma’s eyes lost their gentleness. His smile disappeared and he pulled out his dagger.

Heiko knew his intentions right away. She could feel Emily’s head resting on her shoulder.

“No, Kuma, don’t.”

Kuma abruptly looked away, dropped his dagger, and leaped out of Heiko’s field of view. Two gunshots followed in quick succession, then nothing, until Matthew Stark stood over her where Kuma had been. He began digging her out without saying a word. Then he, too, stopped suddenly, his hand going to his left waist. He was the one who had fired the gun, Heiko realized, which was now hidden in his shirt. Stark must have recognized whoever was coming because he left the gun where it was and resumed his rescue efforts.

“Don’t move her,” Genji said. “She might be hurt. Wait until Dr. Ozawa arrives.”

Heiko sat up. “I might be bruised, lord, nothing more. When the doctor arrives, he will be needed elsewhere.” She could hear cries of anguish coming from every direction, near and far. Kuma must have set more than one bomb. Why had he not warned her? That was very unlike him. Indeed, it was so unlike him, someone else must be responsible. Kuma would never have put her life at risk. Unlikely though it seemed, perhaps it had been cannons after all. She would question him when they next met and learn the truth. Kuma was a good liar, but not with her. She stood and tested her footing.

“Be careful, please.” Genji put his arm around her waist to support her. “You could be seriously injured and not know it.” His face, usually so placid under the most trying of circumstances, was tense with worry. Furrows lined his forehead. His brows bunched together. The small, slightly disdainful smile that always seemed to grace his lips was gone.

Genji’s unconcealed concern surprised Heiko more than the explosion that had blown the room apart. Sudden joy flooded her heart and she smiled without thinking. Then Genji surprised her even more. His arms went around her and he embraced her tightly.

His lord’s flagrant emotional nakedness stunned Saiki. Embarrassed, he turned away and saw Hidé and Shimoda staring openmouthed at Genji and Heiko.

“Why are you standing there like two fools?” Saiki said. “Check the perimeters. Prepare for an assault.”

“The ships are sailing away,” Hidé said. “No troops came ashore.”

“Ships?”

“Yes, sir. In the bay. Three warships under steam, flying red, white, and blue tricolor flags. They raked the entire Tsukiji district with their cannons.”

“Outsiders did this?” Saiki’s voice shook with outrage.

“Yes, sir,” Hidé said.

“What was the pattern of the flags? The Dutch, French, English, and Americans all use red, white, and blue.”

“There were more than three bars of color, I think,” Hidé said, “weren’t there?”

Shimoda tipped his head noncommittally. “I thought, yes, perhaps so.”

“How observant,” Saiki said. “Now all we know for sure is that the Russians and the Germans were not involved. It’s not likely to be the Dutch. So French, English, or American.”