Shinju (43 page)

T
he cruel triumph Sano saw in Lady Niu's eyes obliterated the slight relief he'd felt at being caught by her instead of her son. Hope died within him. Then Lady Niu turned and walked away. Her dark garments rustled against the ground and trailed up the steps of the veranda after her as she entered the house.

Eii-
chan
was leaning over him, reaching for him. Sano fumbled for his long sword. He dug his heels into the ground, pushing himself backward in a frantic attempt to evade the manservant. But his sword was tangled in the folds of his cloak, and the worsening pain in his wounds made his movements clumsy. Finally he kicked out at Eii-
chan
. His feet hit legs as solid as wood and just as unyielding. Eii-
chan
grabbed him and yanked him to his feet so hard that his arm nearly left its socket. A brutal shove sent him reeling toward the house. His foot struck the bottom step, and he gave a yelp of pain as he crashed against the veranda. Then Eii-
chan
lifted him by the collar, almost off his feet. One strong hand pinioned both of his behind his back; an arm locked across his chest. Sano struggled, then went rigid when the cold edge of a steel blade touched his neck.

As Eii-
chan
propelled him up the steps and through the door, Sano tasted his own death. A wild, animal terror surged through him. He fought it by forcing himself to concentrate on the minute details of his surroundings. Wind-bells tinkling from the eaves.
The corridor, no longer dark, but brightened by lamplight from the translucent windowed walls of the room where Lady Niu waited. The manservant's musty odor, strange but oddly familiar, that provoked in him an urge to sneeze. A faint memory swam just beyond Sano's grasp. He lost it when Eii-
chan
thrust him into Lady Niu's room and pushed him onto his knees.

He formed a quick impression of the room: spacious, with a wall of painted murals and another of built-in cabinets; several lacquer chests; a vase of flowers in the alcove. Then he focused his attention on its occupant.

“Tie him,” Lady Niu ordered. She knelt upon a silk cushion, with more cushions supporting her back and arms. In spite of the heat that rose from the sunken braziers, she had wrapped a thick quilt around her shoulders.

Sano hid his discomfort as Eii-
chan
bound his wrists and ankles, although the cords dug into his skin and almost immediately began to numb his hands and feet. He suppressed a cry of protest when the manservant took his long sword—symbol of his class and honor—and tossed it on the floor like a piece of trash. All the while he never took his eyes off Lady Niu. He saw that her face was white not with makeup, as he'd thought at first, but with the pallor of illness. Beside her was a steaming cup of liquid that smelled like the sour herb broth Sano's father took for headaches. How unlucky for him that Lady Niu should happen to be sick at home tonight instead of out celebrating
Setsubun
! His senses sharpened by fear, he studied her, seeking clues that would tell him how to convince her to release him unharmed.

Her face revealed nothing except the same impassive control she'd displayed during their first meeting. The only words he could think of sounded too much like begging, which would only humiliate him further. He tried to take courage from the fact that she'd brought him inside instead of having him killed at once. Was she open to negotiation? Or did she want to enjoy seeing him tortured?

“Eii-
chan
,” Lady Niu said, lifting her chin.

After one last tug on Sano's bindings, the manservant stepped back. He crossed the room to stand at a point halfway between and to one side of Sano and Lady Niu. He shot Sano a brief but eloquent glance that warned of the punishment he would administer should Sano try to escape or harm his mistress. Then his face hardened to its usual stony blankness, as though he didn't care that he'd just almost killed a man, or that he soon would. Raising one hand to his chest, he lifted a small pouch that hung on a cord around his neck and held it briefly to his nose. Then he folded his arms and looked straight ahead, immobile but with a waiting tension, ready to spring into action at any moment.

“You interest me, Sano-
san
,” Lady Niu said as blandly as if this were an ordinary social occasion. She sipped her broth, then continued. “Before Eii-
chan
disposes of you, I would like to know why you have continued to pursue a course of action that has already cost you your position and will now cost you your life. Why do you compound your troubles by breaking into my house like a common thief? You are not, I think, an unintelligent man. Please explain yourself.”

Although the amount of time remaining to him might depend upon his answer, Sano resisted revealing his inner self to her. He didn't want to try to articulate the insatiable desire for the truth that he barely understood himself. Anger burned in him as he realized that she was toying with him. But he would have to play along with her and hope she gave him an opening that would allow him to bargain.

“I came here tonight to collect evidence that proves your son guilty of at least one of the crimes that I know he has committed,” he said, ignoring her first question and keeping his voice even.

“Oh?” Lady Niu's eyebrows rose in polite surprise. “And what crimes are those?”

How much did she know? Could he throw her off guard by giving her unwelcome news about young Lord Niu?

“The murders of his sister Yukiko and the artist Noriyoshi. The murder of my secretary, Hamada Tsunehiko, whom he mistook for me. The murder of a certain samurai boy, and of your maid O-hisa. And …”

He stopped when he saw Lady Niu regarding him with a complacent smile on her unpainted lips. Her relaxed posture reflected a total lack of concern. She didn't seem the least bit shocked, or even dismayed.

“You know all this already,” he said, unable to keep the amazement out of his voice. “You know what your son has done, and you don't care.”

Lady Niu's smile deepened as she shook her head. “Really, Sano-
san
, I am disappointed in you. Perhaps I have overestimated your intelligence.”

Then Sano experienced one of those great intuitive leaps that come so seldom and never fail to stun. His mind reeled with shock as minor facts that he'd overlooked came together to form a pattern entirely different from the one he'd assembled using only the major facts.

Lord Niu, although as strong as rigorous training and self-discipline could make him, nevertheless had a physical handicap. He could—and did—kill, but could he have disposed of Yukiko's and Noriyoshi's dead bodies alone? His men had helped him get rid of the boy he'd decapitated in a fit of anger, but would he have trusted them to assist in a double premeditated murder—especially when one of the victims was their lord's own daughter? Sano thought not.

Midori's stepmother, not her stepbrother, had sent her to Hakone. And Lady Niu had been the one to complain to Magistrate Ogyu about Sano. Then there was the manservant's strange odor. It came from the pouch that Eii-
chan
wore, which probably held medicinal herbs. Sano now recognized the smell from his room in Totsuka the night of Tsunehiko's murder. He noticed the unhealed scratches on Eii-
chan
's hands—inflicted by O-hisa and the nightwatchman
he'd strangled. Sano had believed that Lord Niu had committed the murders to protect himself. Now he realized that Lady Niu had ordered Eii-
chan
to kill Yukiko, Noriyoshi, and O-hisa. She had sent the manservant to kill him on the Tōkaido, then had him dismissed and framed for murder. All to protect Lord Niu. He'd assigned the right motive to the wrong person. Shaking his head in wonder, Sano beheld the miracle of finally arriving at the truth he'd sought, and finding it so different from what he'd expected.

“I can see that you have guessed the truth.” Lady Niu laughed, a silvery trill that echoed in the hushed room. “Although unfortunately too late to do you any good.”

Sano knew he must keep her talking, if only to postpone the inevitable. “You sent Yukiko to the villa in Ueno,” he said. “You lured Noriyoshi there by promising him enough money to open his own shop. While you were enjoying music at Lord Kuroda's house, Eii-
chan
killed them and threw them in the river.”

Lady Niu laughed again. “Things are easy to understand when the facts are known, are they not?” To Eii-
chan
she said, “Kill this trespassing fugitive and turn his body over to the
doshin
.”

As Eii-
chan
pulled him to his feet, Sano said, “There's no use committing another murder for your son, Lady Niu. You can't protect him from himself, and you have nothing to gain from his treason. He will only die for it. You must know that.”

Neither Lady Niu's expression nor her posture changed, but she stiffened perceptibly. “Treason?” she repeated. “Really, Sano-
san
, I must caution you against making such offensive and groundless accusations. Do you want me to have Eii-
chan
make your death a prolonged and agonizing one?”

Her voice remained calm, but an underlying tremor told Sano that he'd shaken her. She wasn't lying—why would she bother, since she planned to kill him anyway? She didn't know about her son's conspiracy! She'd arranged four deaths solely to cover the lesser of Lord Niu's crimes. But Sano's surprise at this discovery
was nothing compared to that he experienced as he watched her eyes take on a haunted, inward-gazing look. She didn't want to believe her son guilty of treason—but she did believe. She knew what he was capable of doing.

Sano stumbled as Eii-
chan
dragged him toward the door. He continued quickly: “Your son and a group of other sons of daimyo plan to assassinate the shogun and overthrow the Tokugawa government.”

They were out the door before Lady Niu spoke.

“Wait, Eii-
chan
… bring him back.” She sounded both eager and reluctant, wanting and yet not wanting to hear. “How do you know this?” she asked Sano.

On his knees before her once again, Sano told her. When he finished, she didn't respond at once. She frowned, deep in thought, while he waited in suspense. What would she do? He sensed that he now had a chance to save his life, but he couldn't guess what his next step should be until she made hers.

Then Lady Niu's face cleared. “You have a most impressive imagination, Sano-
san
, to dream up such a tale,” she said, her smile back in place. “It amazes me that you have even managed to convince yourself that this scroll exists, so completely that you would risk your life by coming here to steal it.”

Sano's chest tightened as he saw that Lady Niu had conquered her doubts about her son. But he didn't let her see his dismay.

“How do you know the scroll doesn't exist?” he said. “Can you say for a fact that it isn't in your son's possession? What do you think he does when he goes to the summer villa in winter?”

Working against his natural inclination to address a daimyo's lady with deference, he hurled the questions at her. And was rewarded by a flicker of doubt in her eyes.

“Why don't we go to young Lord Niu's chambers and look for the scroll now? Wouldn't you like to prove I'm wrong—if you can?”

He'd gambled that Lady Niu couldn't resist a direct challenge. She didn't disappoint him.

“Very well,” she said, haughty and disdainful now. “We shall go at once. And when this futile exercise is finished, Eii-
chan
will see that you suffer doubly for wasting my time and addressing me in such a rude manner.” She rose, picking up a lamp.

Lord Niu's chambers were in a self-contained house across the garden from Lady Niu's. With Eii-
chan
close behind him holding on to his ropes, Sano followed Lady Niu inside. She slid open a door.

“Bring him in, Eii-
chan
,” she called over her shoulder as she entered the room.

The room's mean proportions surprised Sano, as did the starkness of its undecorated white walls and bare-beamed ceiling. Entirely different from what he'd seen of the rest of the house, it looked like a monk's cell. Even in the dim glow of Lady Niu's lamp, he couldn't miss the cracked plaster, the worn spots in the tatami, and the patched windowpanes. The room was very cold, but he didn't see a single brazier. He would have expected a daimyo's son to live surrounded by lavish displays of wealth. But now he decided that the room suited Lord Niu perfectly. A visual statement against self-indulgence, its austerity reflected the stern warrior values that Lord Niu upheld.

“And now I will show you that you are wrong about my son,” Lady Niu said. Her voice had a too-bright quality, as if she thought that by convincing him she could convince herself. Setting her lamp on the floor, she began opening the cabinets that covered one wall.

The cabinets held very little—cotton bedding, toilet articles, a few of the plain dark kimonos that Lord Niu favored, a chest of books and another of writing materials. Lady Niu smiled as she made an exaggerated show of examining everything, but her hands shook. When she sorted through the chests, she cringed like a woman expecting a snake to strike at her.

Sano watched her in silence. He realized he was holding his breath, and expelled it. What if she didn't find the scroll? What if she did? Getting her to help him look might not be the clever move it had seemed at first. Either way, she was bound to punish him. Cold sweat formed on his skin. He clenched his teeth to keep himself from shivering in the frigid air. The pain in his shoulders worsened.

Lady Niu stooped to investigate the last section of the cabinet, a shelf that held underclothes. She pulled out each item and replaced it, stroking the fabric absently. Finally she straightened and spread her empty hands.

“See?” she said with obvious relief and a genuine smile. “The scroll you described does not exist. There is no evidence of any conspiracy.” She folded her arms as her smile vanished. “You will pay dearly for this insult to my son and me.” Her eyes flashed a signal to her manservant. “Eii-
chan
. Proceed.”