The Ronin's Mistress (46 page)

“It would be nice if you would come and visit me,” Okaru said.

“Yes.” But Masahiro knew he would never see her again. That was as it should be.

After a pause, Okaru said, “I wanted to tell you I’m sorry about … what happened.”

Masahiro felt his cheeks flame.

“I didn’t mean anything by it. I was so unhappy, I needed somebody, and you were there.” Okaru seemed ashamed, too. “I’m sorry I upset your mother.”

To her, the embrace that had caused him so much excitement and pleasure had been nothing but a mistake. But Masahiro could accept that, too. “It’s all right,” he said.

“I’m glad you’re not mad at me. I’ll never forget how you protected me from Oishi’s wife.” Okaru smiled fondly. “You’re my hero.” Then she took a closer look at him, and surprise raised her eyebrows. She frowned as her gaze held his.

Masahiro heard a thought, as clear as if she’d spoken it:
If things were different …
His heart was suddenly lighter.

Okaru’s smile turned wistful. “I guess I should be going.” She bowed. “Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” Masahiro said.

Okaru hesitated, then held out her hand. Masahiro hesitated, then reached for it. Their fingers clasped, then let go. The soft warmth of her skin lingered on his as Okaru walked away through the rain of falling cherry blossoms.

“Masahiro!” Taeko called. “Try and catch me!”

And now he was running, laughing as he chased Taeko. It felt good to be so carefree. Masahiro spared a moment to wonder if he would fall in love again someday. Would he be lucky enough that the girl he fell in love with would fall in love with him, too?

He thought he probably would.

*   *   *

“
SHH, DON’T CRY,”
Hirata crooned to his baby daughter. He rocked her in his arms. “Papa’s here.”

The baby squalled, her little fists waving, her feet kicking inside the blanket wrapped around her. Hirata smiled. It was amazing how much one could love such a tiny, new person.

Midori bustled into the room. “She’s hungry. Give her to me.”

Hirata handed the baby over. “She’s also wet,” he said, holding out the damp sleeve of his kimono. “It’s amazing how much water such a tiny person can make.”

“Oh, I almost forgot to tell you,” Midori said. “You have visitors.”

When Hirata went into the reception room, there were Tahara, Deguchi, and Kitano. They bowed politely. “Hello,” Tahara said with his rakish smile.

Chilling fear and fuming anger beset Hirata. “What are you doing here?”

“Now, now, is that any way to greet your guests?” Kitano’s eyes crinkled in his scarred, paralyzed face.

“We haven’t seen you in a while,” Tahara said, “so we decided to stop by.” Deguchi watched Hirata through heavy-lidded eyes, inscrutable. “Have you been avoiding us?”

Hirata had. Whenever he’d felt their aura, he’d walked in the opposite direction. Whenever he’d seen them around town, he’d pretended not to notice them. He hadn’t wanted to talk to them until he’d made sense of the incident at the palace. But no matter how much he mulled it over, he ended up with the same questions that only they could answer.

“We thought it was time for another talk,” Kitano said.

“I agree,” Hirata said, “but not here.” He didn’t want them in his house.

They went to the castle’s herb garden. The plots were green with new spring plants, the air scented with mint, coriander, and honeysuckle. Bees hummed; butterflies flitted.

“Did you know that Yoritomo would pick up the branch?” Hirata demanded. “That if it hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t have tried to attack Kajikawa and he would still be alive? Or that if he hadn’t, the shogun might have died?”

Tahara, Deguchi, and Kitano exchanged unreadable glances. “Not exactly,” Tahara said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hirata said, vexed by their obtuseness.

“The rituals tell us what to do,” Kitano said. “Not always the specifics or the results.”

“Did you want Yoritomo to die?” Hirata pressed. “Why? What are you up to?”

“It was meant to be,” Tahara said. “Our mission is to see that destiny is fulfilled.”

“Without knowing how? Or who’ll get hurt?” Hirata was incredulous. “Shouldn’t you figure out what’s going to happen first, and then decide what’s best to do?”

Tahara shrugged. Deguchi shook his head, calm and radiant. Kitano said, “That’s not how it works.”

Hirata folded his arms. “Well, I won’t even consider joining your society until you tell me more about these rituals and what your plans are.”

“When you join us, you’ll be told,” Tahara said.

“I’m supposed to take an oath of loyalty to the society, swear that it’s my top priority, that I’ll keep its business a secret, and that I’ll abide by all its decisions, based on nothing?”

“Based on what you’ve witnessed,” Tahara said.

Hirata laughed. “That’s insane!”

“That’s how it works,” Kitano said.

“This is your last chance,” Tahara said. “Are you in or out?”

Hirata had known the answer to that question when Tahara had previously invited him to join the secret society. He owed his complete loyalty to Sano and the shogun. Bushido forbade him to put anything else ahead of them. If he tried to juggle his duty to them with commitment to the secret society, his interests would conflict sooner or later. Yet he couldn’t quite turn Tahara down flat.

“What if I’m out?” Hirata said.

Tahara nodded, acknowledging his implicit threat—that Hirata would decline to join the secret society and oppose its actions. Tahara’s expression became a degree less genial. “Let’s just say that you don’t want to make enemies of us.”

They would destroy anyone who opposed them, Hirata understood; and they had the power to stand against all outsiders. But if Hirata were inside their society, he would learn how they divined what actions to take. He would have a say in what they did. Somebody had to control them, and who better than he? Furthermore, he must protect Sano, the shogun, the regime, his family, and all of Japan from these dangerous men.

These noble goals fit with a motive that was more personal. If Hirata joined the society, he would gain access to the rituals, spells, and secrets that would raise his mystical martial arts expertise to a new level. He wanted this with a fierce longing that overpowered his reservations.

“Well, then,” Hirata said. His excitement and his eagerness to be initiated into the secrets of the cosmos warred with his dread that this was a decision he would live to regret. “I’m in.”

*   *   *

NOISY CROWDS STREAMED
in and out through the arched gate of Sengaku Temple. Sano and his troops escorted Reiko in her palanquin through a new marketplace where booths sold noodles, dumplings, rice cakes, dried fruit, sake, and dishware. Peddlers hawked candles, prayers written on wooden stakes and paper strips, and incense. When Sano dismounted, a tout from a theater pressed a playbill into his hand. Such heavy clouds of incense smoke hung over the temple buildings that it looked as if they were on fire.

“I didn’t know there was a festival today,” Reiko said, climbing out of her palanquin. She was bright-eyed and gay, relieved because Sano had told her the good news that she’d won the shogun’s favor by killing Kajikawa, and that the shogun had demoted Yanagisawa and promoted Sano.

“There isn’t a festival,” Sano said. He was happy because Reiko had told him the news about Masahiro’s betrothal. “This is in honor of the forty-seven
r
ō
nin.
”

Inside the temple precincts, Sano and Reiko squeezed past peasants, merchants, beggars, and squadrons of samurai. Pilgrims, who carried walking sticks and banners from their home villages, besieged the worship hall. Around the well where Oishi and his men had washed Kira’s head, prayer stakes were stuck in the earth amid layers of coins. Sano and Reiko joined a long line outside the cemetery. When they finally got through the gate, the small graveyard was so jammed that they could hardly move. Smoke from incense vats formed a sweet, pungent, suffocating atmosphere. Where Oishi and his men had once stood, bloodstained and awaiting orders, now there were stone tablets that marked their graves.

Lord Asano, in his tomb, was no longer alone. His loyal retainers had come to join him. His disgrace had been obliterated by acclaim for them. Visitors bowed to the grave tablets; they stroked the stone lantern at which the forty-seven
r
ō
nin
had laid Kira’s head; they tied paper prayer strips to the stone fences, where thousands of strips already fluttered. They left offerings on the bases of the tablets, which were already covered with rice cakes, cups of sake, and cherry blossoms. Adulation swelled the voices that murmured in awe, chanted prayers. Samurai wept.

Reiko was crying, too. “They’re heroes,” she said.

“Yes,” Sano said. The public had settled the issue. “Even though they broke the law.” Or perhaps because they’d broken the law. The public loved renegades. “Even though they had to die.” Had they not died, opinion would have still been divided about them. They would have been excoriated, persecuted; and as
r
ō
nin,
they would have worn the mantle of disgrace even though they’d avenged their master. Death shielded them from censure. But in spite of his cynical thoughts, Sano felt tears sting his own eyes. It was impossible not to be moved by the spectacle of such reverence for the highest acts of loyalty and atonement that a samurai could perform. Even though he was uneasy about his own role in the business.

He looked at the playbill in his hand. Its heading read,
The Forty-Seven Loyal Retainers
; it was illustrated by a crude drawing of samurai in battle and listed a cast of famous actors. Oishi and his men had caught the fancy of the theater world. They were famous, on their way to becoming immortalized.

“Where is Oishi’s grave?” Reiko asked.

They found it in a corner of the cemetery. It was a stone tablet flanked by vases of flowers and enclosed on three sides by a wooden cage. As Sano and Reiko paid their silent respects to Oishi, a fashionably dressed man elbowed through the crowd.

“Forgive me, Oishi-
san,
” he cried, prostrating himself before the grave. He had a square face with an aggressive jaw. “When I saw you lying in the gutter in Miyako, I thought you’d become a worthless bum. But now I know I misjudged you. You were a true samurai.”

Sano stared, amazed. “That’s the man from Satsuma,” he told Reiko. “The one Oishi mentioned in his story.”

They took the long route back to their escorts, around the temple, skirting the woods. It was quiet and peaceful here, and lush with spring, but Sano’s thoughts were dark, troubled.

“What’s wrong?” Reiko asked.

“I feel as if I don’t deserve the promotion,” Sano said.

“Why on earth not?”

Sano hadn’t told Reiko about the moment when he’d been presented with the choice between rescuing the shogun or Masahiro. In all the confusion no one but himself had noticed it. He told Reiko now.

“If Hirata and the soldiers hadn’t helped the shogun, you’d have done it and let Yanagisawa kill Masahiro?” Reiko’s voice was filled with horrified indignation. Then she looked stunned as the opposite scenario occurred to her. “You would have saved Masahiro and abandoned the shogun?” She sucked in her breath, then released it in a whisper. “Oh.”

It was clear that she recognized the dilemma that Sano had experienced and saw that whichever his choice, the consequences would have been disastrous. She waved her hand, as if to fend off the very idea of them. “But you didn’t choose. You didn’t have to, thank the gods. So let’s not even think about it.”

“I can’t help thinking about it,” Sano said. “I keep wondering whom I’d have chosen. Could I put Bushido and loyalty to my lord ahead of Masahiro’s life? Or would I have made the same choice as Kajikawa, who put his feelings for his son above all other concerns?” Sano glanced toward the temple. “When I looked at Oishi’s grave, I felt inferior.”

Reiko was silent for a long moment. Sano could tell that she thought he should have saved their son and the shogun be damned. She was Masahiro’s mother. Her maternal instinct outweighed Bushido.

When she spoke, she picked her words carefully, as if trying to assuage Sano’s doubt about his worth as a samurai while stifling her urge to impose her own opinion on him. “In the end, I think actions matter more than motives. The forty-seven
r
ō
nin
avenged their master’s death. History will remember them for their loyalty, not everything else. The same applies to you.” She gently touched Sano’s arm. “The shogun thinks you protected him from Kajikawa. It’s true. But he’s forgotten that you’ve risked your life for him many times.” She smiled, tender and proud. “You’re every bit as much a samurai hero as the forty-seven
r
ō
nin.
”

Her praise lifted Sano’s spirits. “I suppose I have to believe you, because you’re always right,” he said.

It felt good to be out of disgrace and officially back at the helm of the regime. Sano decided to stop dwelling on what he might have done under different circumstances. Instead, he would renew his commitment to Bushido and do his loyal best to serve the shogun. He would turn his attention to the future.

The war between him and Yanagisawa wasn’t over. Yanagisawa blamed him for Yoritomo’s death. It was the one offense that Yanagisawa would never forgive. When Yanagisawa emerged from mourning, there would be hell for Sano to pay.

ALSO BY LAURA JOH ROWLAND

The Cloud Pavilion