The Dragon King's Palace

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “I won’t sacrifice those women for the likes of you!” Sano shouted, furious at Hoshina, Yanagisawa, and himself for the circumstances that ensnared him. “Nor will I let you interfere with my duty to rescue Lady Keisho-in.” He snatched up the ransom letter from the pavilion’s floor where Hoshina had thrown it. “I’ll take this to the shogun now and advise him to comply with the demands. I’ll personally deliver you to the executioner.”

  In the heat of his anger, Sano didn’t want to think that Hoshina had a legitimate claim on him. Sano cared most about saving Reiko. He reached out to grab Hoshina, but the police commissioner shoved him away.

  “Behold the mighty ssakan-sama,” Hoshina said. Though his eyes registered fear that he’d lost his last gamble, he bared his teeth in a mocking grin. “He pretends to champion justice and uphold honor, but he would condemn me to a disgraceful death, without even knowing what murder the kidnappers have accused me of, or if I’m guilty. And why? Because he wishes to serve duty by rescuing his lord’s mother?”

  Hoshina addressed his questions to an imaginary audience. He ignored Yanagisawa, who silently watched. “No—he only wants to save his wife.” Hoshina stank of desperation, but he sneered in contempt at Sano. “You despise other men for serving selfish interests. Well, you’re a hypocrite.”

  “Shut up!” Sano yelled, incensed because Hoshina spoke the same criticism that his conscience was whispering to him.

  “You always insist on knowing the truth, but the truth hurts sometimes, doesn’t it?” Hoshina taunted.

  “I’ll execute you myself!” Sano reached for his sword, which Yanagisawa’s guards had confiscated.

  “You wouldn’t even if you could,” Hoshina said, more reckless as he perceived that he’d gained the upper hand. “You won’t abet my death even though you love your wife and hate me. We both know you have to keep your promise.”

  Sano experienced a sensation of careening down a steep hill as he realized that Hoshina was right. Whatever his reluctance, he must concede. The samurai code of honor that he lived to serve forbade reneging on his word or giving in to a demand from a criminal. Lifelong adherence to Bushido had destined him to perform the favor Hoshina wanted. And he began to perceive other, even more important reasons why he must. Stricken by defeat, he glared at Hoshina.

  The mockery in Hoshina’s smile turned to triumph. Yanagisawa betrayed no emotion. Sano understood that his own honor had always been their strongest weapon against him. Even as his heart rebelled, his samurai spirit quelled its protests. The onus settling upon him bowed his head.

  “We’ll go to the shogun now,” Yanagisawa said.

  He took the ransom letter from Sano, clearly bent on doing just what he’d said he would—letting matters take their course. Sano’s mind raced with frenetic thoughts. How could he save Hoshina, and Reiko besides?

  13

  The shogun sat on the dais in the palace audience chamber, holding the ransom letter in his spindly hands. His head moved, his lips formed inaudible words, and concentration puckered his face while he read the columns of characters. Utter quiet immersed the room.

  Sano, kneeling below the dais at Tokugawa Tsunayoshi’s left, felt his heartbeat accelerate and his stomach tighten behind his stoic countenance. As he mentally rehearsed what he would say, he eyed Police Commissioner Hoshina, who knelt near him.

  Hoshina had donned a silk kimono, trousers, and surcoat in shades of green before coming to the palace. His sweat had already spread damp patches across the garments. Unable to sit still, he kept looking from the shogun to Sano, from the shogun’s guards stationed along the walls to Sano’s detectives kneeling at the back of the room, and finally to Yanagisawa.

  The chamberlain sat at the shogun’s right, his aloof demeanor like a shield between him and everyone else. Sano marveled at Yanagisawa’s control, for he himself couldn’t have remained so calm while depending on his enemy to save his beloved.

  “What is this peculiar poem about a, ahh, drowned woman and the dragon king?” the shogun said, baffled. “And what does it have to do with, ahh, the kidnapping?”

  No one answered. Everyone waited while he read the ransom demand. “Ahh!” Surprise raised Tokugawa Tsunayoshi’s eyebrows; then comprehension illuminated his face. Looking up from the letter, he exclaimed, “Now I can rescue my mother!”

  He turned to Hoshina. “You have, ahh, served me well, and it is a pity that I must, ahh, sacrifice you. But you shall have the, ahh, ultimate honor of dying in the line of duty.”

  Hoshina gulped; his Adam’s apple jerked: All his verbal prowess had deserted him. Sano had expected Tokugawa Tsunayoshi would concede to the kidnapper’s demands, but he was amazed that the shogun spoke with such callous disregard for Hoshina, though of course he owed his retainers nothing. Sano realized that appeals to the shogun’s compassion wouldn’t save Hoshina.

  The shogun signaled to his guards. “Take Hoshina-san to the execution ground at once. After he’s, ahh, dead, place his corpse and severed head on a frame at the Nihonbashi Bridge, with a sign that, ahh, proclaims him to be a murderer.”

  Four guards advanced toward Hoshina, who stared at Sano, willing him to keep his promise. Yanagisawa watched the scene with cool detachment. Now was Sano’s last chance to go back on his word, do nothing, and let Hoshina die; yet honor and wisdom overpowered selfish impulse.

  “Your Excellency, please wait,” Sano said in a voice fraught with his conflicting emotions.

  Everyone’s attention shifted to Sano. The shogun regarded him in surprise. “Wait for what?” Tokugawa Tsunayoshi said. “The sooner I, ahh, execute Police Commissioner Hoshina, the sooner the, ahh, kidnappers will return my mother to me.”

  “Not necessarily, Your Excellency,” said Sano.

  The guards seized Hoshina and yanked him to his feet. He resisted, his muscles straining, his features set in a grimace of terror. The shogun planted his fists on his hips and leaned toward Sano.

  “How dare you interfere?” Tokugawa Tsunayoshi demanded. “Are you so, ahh, disloyal to me that you would, ahh, protect Hoshina-san at my mother’s expense?” Ire reddened his cheeks. “Perhaps you wish to, ahh, join him at the execution ground.”

  Although fear threatened to choke Sano, he must continue his risky course, for Reiko’s sake as well as Hoshina’s. “My only wish is to serve you, Your Excellency,” he said. “And I must respectfully advise you that killing Hoshina-san won’t guarantee the honorable Lady Keisho-in’s safety.”

  The shogun tilted his head, looked askance at Sano, but his lack of confidence in his own decisions gave him hesitation. He raised a hand and stopped the guards from dragging Hoshina away. “What are you, ahh, talking about?”

  Sano felt the force of Hoshina’s hope trained on him. He said, “It’s not in the kidnappers’ interest to ever free Lady Keisho-in. She must have seen their faces, so she can identify them. They know that if they let her go alive, she’ll help you hunt them down. As soon as they know Hoshina is dead, they’ll kill her and the other hostages.”

  This possibility enabled Sano to argue with conviction against obeying the kidnappers. Now the shogun’s jaw dropped. “But this says my mother will be released if I, ahh, execute Hoshina-san,” Tokugawa Tsunayoshi said, holding up the letter.

  “A promise from a criminal is worthless,” Sano said. “Someone evil enough to kidnap the honorable Lady Keisho-in and murder her entourage will have no scruples about reneging on Your Excellency as soon as you’ve given him what he wants.”

  Tokugawa Tsunayoshi pounded the dais in outrage that anyone would treat him thus. “Disgraceful!” Immediately, his face crumpled. He wailed, “But the, ahh, kidnapper will kill my mother if I don’t execute Hoshina-san.”

  The kidnapper might indeed murder all the women unless he got his way, Sano knew; whatever they did, they could lose.

  The shogun underwent another sudden mood change to suspicion. “You’re trying to, ahh, confuse me,” he told Sano, then turned on Chamberlai
n Yanagisawa. “I begin to think there is a, ahh, plot to make me spare Hoshina-san and doom my mother.”

  Yanagisawa involuntarily stiffened with the alarm that Sano also experienced. The atmosphere in the room grew heavy with menace. Outside, beyond the open doors, the sun had risen above the buildings surrounding the garden, but the palace’s deep eaves shadowed the audience chamber.

  “There’s no plot that involves me, Your Excellency,” said Yanagisawa, and his voice sounded brittle. “I haven’t lifted a finger to prevent Hoshina-san’s execution.”

  “But you’ve, ahh, sat by and let Sano-san argue against it.” The shogun lunged to his feet so awkwardly that he almost fell on Yanagisawa, who drew back in consternation. “Do you think I don’t know that Hoshina-san is your lover? Do you think I’m so stupid that I, ahh, wouldn’t guess that you want to save him?” Eyes narrowed by pique, the shogun loomed over Yanagisawa. “You, whom I’ve loved and trusted, have, ahh, conspired with Sano-san to deceive me. Your pact is treason of the most, ahh, heinous kind, and you shall be punished.”

  Rage swelled his slight body and purpled his face. Before Sano or Yanagisawa could react, the shogun called out: “Guards! Take them to the, ahh, execution ground. They can die with their, ahh, comrade, whom they value above me.”

  One pair of guards hastened toward Sano, and another toward the chamberlain. Sano saw his own horrified shock expressed on Yanagisawa’s face as the guards grabbed them. For years they’d both managed to evade the constant threat of death that haunted everyone in the bakufu, but their luck had run out. Panicking, Sano tasted the terror of death, and the awful humiliation that the shogun deemed him a traitor. Hoshina, still in the grip of his guards, moaned as though realizing that all was lost.

  “Your decisiveness is admirable, Your Excellency, but I must advise you that you’re making a terrible mistake,” Yanagisawa said while the guards hauled him upright. His eyes flared with indignation, sweat glistened on his skin, and never had Sano seen him so frightened.

  “If you kill Hoshina, you’ve sentenced your mother to death,” Sano hastened to add. Struggling to resist the guards, he wished the kidnappers had asked for anything else but Hoshina’s execution. “And if you kill us, who will rescue her for you, before the kidnappers kill her?”

  The shogun teetered from side to side; a harried look furrowed his brow. “Priest Ryuko says he can, ahh, help me.” His blinking eyes avoided Sano and Yanagisawa. “He said the, ahh, oracle bones named the two of you as, ahh, demons who threaten the regime. If I, ahh, rid my court of you, harmony will balance the cosmic forces. My mother will be delivered from evil.”

  “Priest Ryuko lies,” Yanagisawa declared, now willing to openly denounce the priest rather than give up his life without a fight. “If he’s the great magician that he claims, he would have predicted the kidnapping beforehand, and prevented it. It’s he, not us, who has tricked you.”

  “. . . Aah?” The shogun pursed his mouth.

  Sano was glad to see that Yanagisawa had undermined Priest Ryuko’s influence and the shogun’s certainty about his own judgment. Yet the guards propelled Sano, Yanagisawa, and Hoshina toward the door, and the shogun didn’t intervene. Sano’s panic grew. Unless he could sway his lord, he would die in disgrace. Reiko would die without him to save her. All because his honor had forced him to protect Hoshina, who didn’t deserve protecting, and because he’d failed to convince the shogun that executing Hoshina wasn’t the solution to their problem.

  “Yes, Priest Ryuko is a fraud,” Sano said in desperation. Speaking out against the powerful cleric couldn’t hurt him any more than could keeping silent. “You need us, Your Excellency. We’re your only hope of saving the honorable Lady Keisho-in.”

  Irresolution, and his tendency to quail when anyone opposed him, wavered the shogun’s stance.

  “Destroy us, and she’s doomed,” Chamberlain Yanagisawa said. “Spare us, and we’ll prove our loyalty by returning her safe and sound to Your Excellency.”

  A short eternity passed while Tokugawa Tsunayoshi vacillated. Crows in the garden cawed like the carrion birds that flocked the execution ground. At last, the shogun raised a tentative hand to the guards. They paused, bridling Sano, Yanagisawa, and Hoshina at the threshold.

  “You haven’t, ahh, found my mother yet, so why should I, ahh, believe you can ever rescue her?” Tokugawa Tsunayoshi demanded.

  Sano noted that crises affected people in different ways, and this one had improved the shogun’s wits. Hoshina mutely waited, his face confused, as if he couldn’t guess whether he was about to be saved or on the brink of his downfall.

  “That we’ve learned why the kidnappers took the honorable Lady Keisho-in has opened a new avenue of inquiry,” Sano said. “I now know where to begin looking for them.” All his hopes for Reiko hinged on that belief. “This time I’ll find her.” Conviction strengthened his voice. “I swear it on my honor.”

  Abruptly, the shogun plopped down on the dais. “Very well,” he said with the air of a man eager to trust what he heard, make a decision, and spurn responsibility. “I grant you the, ahh, right to continue your search.” He waved off the guards who held Sano and Yanagisawa. “Resume your, ahh, seats.”

  “A million thanks, Your Excellency,” Yanagisawa said, meek for once.

  Sano exhaled a trapped breath. He and Yanagisawa slunk back to their places, knelt, and bowed to the shogun. Tokugawa Tsunayoshi said, “But what should we, ahh, do about the, ahh, ransom letter? It seems that whether I comply or not, I am damned.”

  Chamberlain Yanagisawa gave Sano a look that said, Yes, what should we do?

  “Hoshina-san is your insurance of your honorable mother’s survival,” Sano told the shogun. “Therefore, I advise you to postpone his execution. The kidnappers will keep Lady Keisho-in alive because the promise of her return is their only means offorcing you to meet their demands.”

  Sano didn’t voice his fear that the women were already dead and whatever the shogun did wouldn’t help them. “The kidnappers have gone to great lengths to destroy Hoshina-san,” he continued, “and the fact that they want him dead so badly works to our advantage. They’ll wait for you to execute him. Stalling them will give me time to hunt them down.”

  “That sounds like a, ahh, good plan,” the shogun said, mollified.

  Hoshina cleared his throat. “Then may I be freed, Your Excellency?” His voice was unsteady, his complexion blanched.

  The shogun nodded, but Sano said quickly, “No—you must imprison him and announce to the public that he’s been sentenced to death. The kidnappers will hear the news and think you intend to give in to them. The longer they think so, the longer we have to rescue Lady Keisho-in.”

  Furthermore, Sano couldn’t let Hoshina go free because he might panic and run. Hoshina was also insurance of Reiko’s survival, and Sano wanted him under close watch.

  “Very well,” said the shogun, then addressed the guards: “Place Hoshina-san under, ahh, house arrest.”

  As the guards led Hoshina from the chamber, he cast an ireful glance at Sano: He obviously thought Sano should have done better by him. He displayed no gratitude toward Sano for saving his life, nor relief that the shogun had spared it.

  The shogun turned to Sano and Yanagisawa. “I shall, ahh, announce that Hoshina-san will be executed in, ahh, seven days.” The crisis had also spurred him to rare, decisive authority. “That is how long you, ahh, have to rescue my mother.”

  “Yes, Your Excellency,” Sano and Yanagisawa chorused.

  Although their moment of gravest peril had passed, Sano foresaw the dangers of the plan he’d foisted upon his lord. His skin was clammy, his hands and feet turned to lumps of ice; nausea lurched his stomach.

  “If you don’t succeed by then, Hoshina-san dies.” Menace darkened the shogun’s gaze, infused his voice. “And if you’ve, ahh, advised me wrong, and my mother dies, I’ll, ahh, execute you both.”

  “Yes, Your Excellency,” Yanagisawa said in a subdued
tone.

  Sano could barely nod, for if he tried to speak anymore, he would vomit up the dread born of knowing that if he’d advised the shogun wrong, he’d not only doomed himselfbut sealed Reiko’s destruction.

  14

  Sunshine fell across Reiko’s face and penetrated her closed eyelids. Jarred suddenly awake, she found herself sitting with the broken rafter on her lap, slumped against the wall of the prison. Rays of morning light pierced the window shutters and ceiling and meshed in the dusty air. Reiko bolted up. She’d meant to wait alert for the kidnappers, but sometime during the night she’d dozed off. Now she hastened to Midori, Keisho-in, and Lady Yanagisawa, who lay asleep and motionless.

  “Wake up,” she said urgently, shaking them. As they groaned and stirred to life, Reiko said, “The kidnappers might arrive any moment. We must prepare.”

  The loud, abrasive opening of the door reverberated up through the floor. They all jumped.

  “They’re coming!” Midori cried.

  Reiko pointed Midori and Keisho-in toward a back corner. “Sit over there. Hurry!” They obeyed. Reiko seated Lady Yanagisawa against the rear wall, opposite the door. The woman’s face was still vacant with drowsiness, her movements slow. “Do you remember what to do?” Reiko anxiously asked.

  A hesitant nod from Lady Yanagisawa inspired little confidence in Reiko. She hurried to stand in her own place beside the door. She gripped the rafter in both hands, raising it like a club. As they all waited in suspense, footsteps thumped up the first flight of stairs. Reiko thought she heard only two men this time, and she was glad. The fewer of them, the better her chances.

  The footsteps mounted higher. Outside, pigeons cooed and fluttered wildly on the roof; the lapping waves registered each moment. Suddenly Lady Yanagisawa said, “Reiko-san?”

  “What?” Reiko said, disturbed that the woman should speak at a critical moment.