The Fire Kimono (27 page)

Before Hirata went out to pursue his inquiries, he stopped at home to check with his staff on the progress of work ordered by the shogun. The noise of laughter drew him to his children’s room. From the doorway he saw Taeko and Tatsuo romping on the bed, swatting each other with pillows. Midori scolded them good-naturedly. A hollow sensation ached in Hirata’s stomach. He felt like a starving man watching a banquet to which he wasn’t invited.

Midori’s gaze met his and turned somber. The children saw Hirata, stopped playing, and fell silent. Midori folded her hands and waited for Hirata to say what he wanted or leave. Now Hirata felt ashamed of his wish to be part of his family, and angry at Midori for excluding him. He gave up his plan to bide his time and wait for her to make a move toward him so they could have a showdown.

“I want to talk to you,” he said.

“Very well,” she said meekly, and followed him down the passage to their chamber.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Hirata said.

Midori didn’t flinch from the belligerence in his voice. “Nothing, Husband.”

Angrier than ever, he said, “You’re treating me as coldly as if I were a stranger. And your attitude has rubbed off on the children. You’ve turned them against me. Are you still trying to punish me for leaving you?”

“That isn’t it.”

Hirata didn’t believe her, although there was a steadiness about her that told him she wasn’t lying. Her feelings about his abandonment of her and the children had shifted in some way that he couldn’t define. That his mystic martial arts powers were so useless with his wife!

“Well, if you have some other grievance against me, just say it,” he ordered. “Don’t play games! Stand up and fight!”

Annoyance twitched Midori’s mouth. “I’m not some enemy warrior. I’m your wife.”

“Then act like it!” Hirata exclaimed in frustration. “I said I was sorry for leaving. Now that I’m home, can’t we just go back to the way we were before?”

“Maybe you can. But I can’t.” Midori’s manner was sad but calm. “I can’t forget that you were gone for three years.”

Those three years had been some of the most challenging and fulfilling in Hirata’s life. But he suddenly realized how they must have seemed to Midori-an eternity of waiting, loneliness, and wondering if he would ever return. He felt guiltier than ever, and impatient with her for not seeing his side.

“I had no choice but to go,” he said. “It was my destiny.”

“I understand,” Midori said, devoid of the anger that she’d expressed when he’d previously spoken those words. “I also understand that if your destiny calls you to go away again, you will. You must do what you must. And I must do what I must.”

For the first time since his return from Ezogashima, he really looked at Midori. He was shocked at how much she’d matured since he left. Their separations had aged her far beyond her twenty-four years. She wasn’t the innocent girl she’d been when they’d married for love, over the strenuous objections of their families. She was a woman he didn’t know.

“If you want me to be your wife, I will,” Midori said. “Whatever you ask me to do, I’ll obey. I’ll live with you, share your bed, make our children be nice to you, and bear you others if you want. I’ll speak or not speak at your command. But nothing more.”

The life she proposed, which described that of most other married couples, wasn’t what Hirata had ever wanted. As he gazed at her in alarm, he couldn’t think of anything to say except, “You are trying to punish me. You’re still angry.”

Midori shook her head; her expression was bleak, resigned. “I’ve buried my anger. Those are the terms on which I can continue our marriage.” She spoke with an uncharacteristic formality. “By accepting them, I won’t care when you leave the next time.”

Hirata was speechless, and appalled.

Until this moment he’d never truly regretted choosing his martial arts studies over Midori. Their quarrels had vexed him so much that he’d thought she deserved to be abandoned any time he felt like leaving again. Now he realized that her behavior wasn’t an act, wasn’t a ploy to nettle him or force him to prove his love for her. Along with her anger she’d buried her love for him. And Hirata had lost not just his wife but his entire family. They were his by law, to command as he wished; yet he couldn’t force their affection.

“Now if you will please excuse me, Husband,” Midori said, “I must put the children to bed.”

She stepped past Hirata and exited the room. Hirata stood alone, more helpless than ever in his life. He’d never met a problem that he couldn’t confront head-on, with physical strength and mental agility, as a samurai should. But this one was different. How was he going to solve it?

The Sumida River flowed past the sleeping city. The glow in the sky stained the rippling water orange, as if fires burned beneath its surface. The rhythmic, clacking noise of watchmen’s clappers echoed over barges and boats moored at the docks. Warehouses on the banks raised solid walls and closed doors against intruders. By day a place alive with people and commerce, the riverfront was deserted at night, a private place for business best conducted in the dark.

Sano owned a warehouse that stored the huge quantities of rice with which he paid his retainers. Inside, he and his troops surrounded Inaba, who knelt on the floor. The cavernous room was dimly lit by one lantern. Straw rice bales, stacked against the walls up to the roofline, ensured that sounds made within wouldn’t reach passersby outside. Sano could have questioned his captive in the comfort of his estate, but that wouldn’t have had the same intimidation value.

“I’ll ask you one more time,” Sano said. “Where is Lord Arima?”

Inaba’s squashed features glistened with sweat and his eyes with terror, but he said insolently, “I already told you: I don’t know. You’re wasting your time.”

But Sano was determined to find out more than Lord Arima’s whereabouts. He believed Lord Arima was the key to figuring out more than the two murders. “I bet I can persuade you to change your mind.”

“How? By torturing me?” Inaba forced a laugh. “You won’t. You’re too squeamish. Everybody knows your reputation.”

Everybody did know that Sano was opposed to torture even though it was a legal means for forcing people to talk. Many thought him a coward about inflicting pain. But although he was capable of it, he’d always found other means worth trying first.

“I can make an exception for you,” he said, “but instead I’m going to offer you a deal. You have two choices: Either you talk to me, or you talk to Lord Matsudaira.”

“What do you mean?” Inaba said, disconcerted.

“Answer my questions, or I’ll drop you off at Lord Matsudaira’s estate. He would be interested to know that your master has skipped town and where he is.”

Panic tensed Inaba. Everybody knew Lord Matsudaira didn’t share Sano’s qualms about torture. Inaba’s gaze lifted to the ceiling, in the futile hope of climbing out the skylights or in prayer to the gods. “All right, I’ll tell you. Lord Arima is on his way to his province, disguised as one of his own soldiers.”

Sano said, “I don’t like that answer.” He could track down Lord Arima eventually, but not soon enough, and he sensed Inaba was hiding something. He started toward the door and beckoned his troops. “Let’s go.”

Inaba cried, “No! Wait!”

“You’re the one who objected to wasting time,” Sano said. “Be glad that Lord Matsudaira will make quick work of you.”

Inaba fell forward onto his hands. They clawed the earthen floor as if trying to root himself in it. Gasping and frantic, he said, “I know things you’ll want to hear. Spare me, and I’ll tell you.”

Sano knew that if he was too eager for information, the man would feed him a pack of lies. “Spare me the bluffing.” His troops closed in on Inaba. Sano kept moving. “We’re finished.”

The troops dragged Inaba toward the door. He cried, “Lord Arima was responsible for ambushing your wife!”

Surprise halted Sano. He turned to face Inaba and signaled his troops to pause.

“It’s true! Lord Arima had spies watching your house.” Straining against the troops while they held his arms and legs, Inaba said, “When Lady Reiko went out in her palanquin, they alerted him. He sent the assassins after her. He had them wear Lord Matsudaira’s crest. He wanted you to think they were sent by Lord Matsudaira.”

Sano remembered how strenuously Lord Matsudaira had denied attacking Reiko. “Weren’t they?”

“No. Lord Matsudaira didn’t even know. It was all Lord Arima’s idea.”

Lord Matsudaira had been telling the truth: He hadn’t given the order to kill Reiko; he hadn’t employed his own troops. But he was just as responsible as if he had. “So Lord Arima does Lord Matsudaira’s dirty work and Lord Matsudaira keeps his hands clean,” Sano said. “That’s what lackeys are for. So what?”

“So I thought you’d be interested,” Inaba said, anxious to please, yet put out by Sano’s indifference.

“Oh, I am. And when I catch Lord Arima, he’ll pay. But why should I let you go just for telling me that?” Sano eyed Inaba with scorn. “Why shouldn’t I just hand you over to Lord Matsudaira and let him save me the trouble of killing you for everything your master has done?”

Slyness gleamed through the panic in Inaba’s eyes. “Because that’s not all there is to the story. Lord Arima hasn’t only done Lord Matsudaira’s dirty work-he’s done yours.”

“What are you talking about?” Sano was tired of Inaba’s efforts to manipulate him, but at last the man had truly snared his attention.

“The bomb at Lord Matsudaira’s estate. That was Lord Arima’s doing, too. He was there that day. So was I. My job was to distract the Matsudaira guards while our men sneaked up to the women’s quarters and threw the bomb.”

Sano stared in outrage as well as astonishment. “I never asked Lord Arima to do any such thing.”

Inaba smirked despite his terror. “Just as Lord Matsudaira never asked Lord Arima to assassinate your wife. Just as neither you nor Lord Matsudaira asked him to ambush each other’s troops or destroy each other’s property on all those past occasions. He did it entirely on his own. He had each of you blaming the other, as he intended.”

Sano realized that his suspicions were well founded: The series of attacks that had escalated their conflict weren’t Lord Matsudaira’s fault any more than they were his own. Even as Sano felt awash in confusion, a thought occurred to him. “When Lord Arima betrayed Lord Matsudaira, it wasn’t only because the shogun threatened him, was it?”

“Call off your dogs, and I’ll tell you,” Inaba said.

“Release him,” Sano ordered.

The troops flung Inaba on the floor. He landed with a thud, winced, and said, “No. Lord Arima wanted to deal a blow to Lord Matsudaira. When the shogun put the question to him, that was his once-in-a-lifetime chance.”

Sano shook his head. “If what you’re saying is true, then why would he tip the balance in my favor when he’s clearly no friend of mine?”

Inaba smiled, relishing Sano’s confusion. “He would have told the shogun that you’re Lord Matsudaira’s rival for power, but he didn’t have time before all hell broke loose.”

“So Lord Arima was playing against both sides,” Sano concluded. “Why?”

“He kept it to himself.” Inaba’s voice was thick with rancor toward his master for leaving him in the dark, leaving him to suffer the consequences. “He told his people only as much as he thought they needed to know. I have no idea.”

Hirata rode across the Nihonbashi Bridge, alone in the scant traffic moving along its high wooden arch. He felt like a nobody even as peasants made way for him and samurai bowed polite greetings. Rigid with unhappiness, he inhaled deeply. Through the acrid smoke that obscured the night sky, he smelled the distant ocean, mountains, and forests. He longed for the faraway places where he’d traveled. How he missed his nomadic life, the blessed freedom from personal complications!

He recalled how ambitious he’d once been, how eager to climb the ranks of the bakufu. Now the high position he’d achieved didn’t matter. Without Midori’s love, there seemed nothing left in Edo for him. Hirata looked over the railing of the bridge at a boat floating down the canal to the river to the sea, and he wished he were on it. But he had his duty to Sano to fulfill.

That, at least, he could manage.

At the foot of the bridge was the first station of the Tokaido, the highway that led from Edo to points west. On one side of the road lined with inns and shops stood the post house. The white plaster building was the checkpoint through which everyone entering town must pass. Its courtyard contained stables for packhorses and an area where the men who carried kago-basket chairs suspended from poles-waited for fares. At this late hour, few people straggled into town.

A merchant in a kago, his servants carrying iron money chests, and his ronin security guards lined up outside the window of the post house. Inside by the window sat two clerks, examining the travelers’ documents by the light of a lantern. Hirata dismounted, marched up to the window, and cut in front of the merchant. The merchant looked annoyed, but noticed the Tokugawa crests on Hirata’s garments and didn’t object.

Hirata stated his name and title to the clerks. One was a gray-haired samurai who’d probably worked as an inspector for so long that no faked travel passes could ever fool him. “How may we serve you, master?”