The Dragon King's Palace

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “They won’t hurt you,” he said in a tone clearly meant to convey an order to his men as well as reassure her.

  But Reiko’s terror burgeoned. Even if they didn’t hurt her, would he? His strangeness sent a chill creeping through her.

  The samurai bent and picked up her fallen kimono. He circled around her as she stood wide-eyed and quaking, wondering what he was doing but afraid to look. Then he gently dropped the kimono over her shoulders and pressed the sash into her hand. Reiko felt the warmth of his body while he stood close behind her and she tied the sash around her waist. She shuddered, retching on sudden nausea, because his gentleness revolted her more than did his men’s outright brutality.

  “Take her back to the keep,” he ordered them.

  Two samurai moved toward her. One was the man she’d wounded. Despite his master’s orders, he gripped her arm in a painful clasp that promised retribution. As the pair led her to a path that cut through the forest, Reiko glanced back at their leader. He stood outside his dingy castle watching her, arms folded, his expression brooding and sinister. The wind ruffled his robes, stirring the dragon alive.

  Who was he? What were his reasons for the massacre and kidnapping? An aura ofevil that surrounded him filled Reiko with dread. And what fate did he intend for her?

  15

  Hirata and Detectives Marume and Fukida rode up the steep stretch of highway toward Hakone, the eleventh post station on the Tkaid. The lofty altitude chilled the early morning. The sun diffused weak, silvery light through a veil of clouds, while mist saturated the air, blurred the forested hills, and reduced the distant mountains to peaked shadows against the sky. Ahead, a gate protected by Tokugawa soldiers blocked the road. Beyond the portals Hirata saw the rustic buildings of Hakone village.

  “Let’s hope we have better luck today than last night,” Hirata called to his companions.

  They’d spent last night at the tenth post station of Odawara. They’d loitered in the shops, bought drinks in each teahouse, and visited every inn, striking up acquaintances with locals and steering the conversation to the kidnapping. But although many people recalled seeing Lady Keisho-in’s party before the abduction, no one provided any clues to what had happened to the women. Nor had Hirata and the detectives found any trace of the kidnappers. Hirata had persuaded three drunken town officials to show him the checkpoint travel records. The list showed no group of men numerous enough to massacre Keisho-in’s entourage. Hirata surmised that the kidnappers had traveled separately to avoid attracting notice, given different destinations when the inspectors asked where they were going, and joined up at the ambush site. He’d searched the list for Lord Niu’s retainers, to no avail. If Lord Niu had sent troops to stage the ambush, they could have traveled under aliases; but for the first time, Hirata experienced doubts that his father-in-law was behind the crime. He wished he knew what Sano’s investigation had uncovered, far away in Edo.

  Now his frustration and anxiety burgeoned, while fatigue strained his mind. The previous day spent journeying from Edo and hiking the forest, and the long night with little sleep, had taken its toll on him and the other men. His nose was congested, his head ached, and his throat was sore from his cold. Fukida’s thin, serious face was haggard, and the brawny Marume had lost his cheer by the time they all reached the Hakone post house, a thatch-roofed building off the roadside.

  “Look at that line!” Marume exclaimed.

  Some fifty travelers waited, amid their baggage, in a queue at the post house. Inside sat inspectors who registered the travelers, checked their documents, searched them and their possessions for hidden weapons and other contraband, then either granted or denied them passage. Hakone was a bakufu trap for people up to no good, and it was famous for its rigorous inspections, which promised a long delay before Hirata and his men could get inside the village and conduct inquiries. They couldn’t cut in line, which would get them in trouble and necessitate revealing their identities. Hirata looked toward the nearby camp inhabited by porters and palanquin-bearers for hire.

  “We’ll try the camp first,” he said.

  He and the detectives left their horses at a water trough and walked into the camp. Cypress trees sheltered flimsy shacks and tents. A reek of urine and excrement from privy sheds competed with the odors from a nearby stable. Men with coarse, weathered faces squatted around a fire, passing a flask of sake while cooking food in iron pots. Their sinewy muscles bulged through their tattered kimonos. They turned suspicious gazes upon Hirata and the detectives.

  “We’re looking for four women, probably traveling with a group of men,” Hirata said, then described Midori, Reiko, Lady Keisho-in, and Lady Yanagisawa. “Have you seen anyone who fits those descriptions?”

  “It depends on who’s asking,” said the biggest man. His shrewd, glinting eyes sized up Hirata. His skin was blue with tattoos ofwinged demons; his crooked nose and scarred face bespoke a lifetime of brawling. Hirata marked him as the gang leader of the camp.

  “Someone who’s willing to pay for the right kind of information,” Hirata said.

  Detective Marume jingled coins in the pouch at his waist. The leader’s expression turned crafty. “Ah,” he said, nodding, “Tokugawa spies. Would you be looking for the shogun’s mother and her ladies who were kidnapped off the Tkaid?”

  “No,” Hirata said, perturbed that the man had seen through the disguises and subterfuge that had fooled everyone else.

  The leader looked unconvinced. “If you say so.” He bowed with mock courtesy to Hirata. “My name is Goro, and I’m at your service.” Then he addressed his comrades: “Here’s your chance to earn some extra silver. Did you see those ladies?”

  Regretful denials and head-shaking ensued.

  “What about one or two women traveling in different groups?” Hirata said. Perhaps the kidnappers had split up their party to avoid detection. But this question elicited more negative answers.

  “Did you see anything out of the ordinary?” Hirata asked. He saw Goro smirk, and he realized the man had been deliberately withholding information, toying with him. “Tell me!” he ordered, his temper flaring.

  Goro held out his hand, palm up, and waggled his fingers. Marume dropped coins one by one into Goro’s hand until Hirata said, “That’s enough. Now talk.”

  The man grinned and tucked the coins in his own waist pouch. “The day before yesterday, a group of samurai hired me and some other porters to carry four big wooden chests.” Goro’s arms gestured, indicating dimensions large enough to contain a human body.

  Excitement leapt in Hirata. “What was in the chests?”

  “I don’t know,” Goro said. “The samurai didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. But the chests had holes cut in the lids.”

  So that people locked inside could breathe, Hirata thought.

  “The samurai were in a big hurry,” Goro went on. “And they paid double the usual rate.”

  As criminals would for carrying contraband such as stolen women. “To go where?” Hirata said.

  “Down Izu way.” The Izu Peninsula, located west of Hakone, jutted off Japan’s southern coast into the sea. “The samurai led us along the main highway that goes through Izu. We had to run to keep up with them. Aii, those chests were heavy. It’s a good thing there were four of us carrying each one. Otherwise, we’d never have lasted the whole trip.”

  Now Hirata understood how the kidnappers had transported their victims, in spite of the law that restricted wheeled traffic on the Tkaid, hindered troop movements, prevented rebellions, and necessitated cargo to be carried by hand. The kidnappers must have bound, gagged, and probably drugged the women, then packed them in their own luggage. The officials who’d examined the scene afterward wouldn’t have noticed chests missing because the checkpoints kept no record of luggage inspected there. Hirata deduced that the kidnappers had carried the chests down the highway from the abduction site. They’d passed as ordinary travelers because the crime hadn’t yet been discovered. At Hakone they’
d hired the porters because they couldn’t manage the heavy loads themselves and move as quickly as they needed.

  “It was the middle of the afternoon when we left here, and past sunset when we stopped at a crossroad,” continued Goro. “It has a Jizo shrine. The samurai paid us off. We left them there with the chests and came back to Hakone.”

  Triumph elated Hirata because he now knew which way the kidnappers had taken Midori. “But how did those samurai get the chests past inspection?” he said.

  “The samurai wore Tokugawa crests and had Tokugawa travel passes,” Goro said. “They were waved right through the checkpoint.”

  Hirata, Marume, and Fukida shared disturbed glances. Had bakufu officials been involved in the abduction? But Hirata speculated that the kidnappers had stolen clothes and documents from soldiers they’d killed during the massacre.

  “Who were those samurai?” Hirata asked Goro.

  “They didn’t tell us,” Goro said.

  “How many were there?”

  “Twelve of them.”

  “What did they look like?”

  “I didn’t get a good look at their faces because they wore helmets with visors and mouth guards.”

  The kidnappers had made sure that their hired help couldn’t identify them, Hirata noted. When pressed for details about the men, Goro recalled little else, and he hadn’t heard anything they’d said to one another. The porters who’d gone with him were away on other jobs and unavailable for questioning.

  “Did you report what you’ve just told me to the authorities?” Hirata asked.

  Goro shook his head. “When those samurai hired me, I didn’t know the shogun’s mother had been taken. And afterward, when I heard about the missing ladies . . .” A sly grin uplifted Goro’s scarred features. He jingled the coins in his pouch. “I decided to wait for a chance to make a little profit.”

  The porter’s greedy opportunism enraged Hirata, but he had neither time nor energy to waste on punishing Goro, or on speculating what might have happened if Goro had reported his news instead of hoarding it. He and Marume and Fukida left the camp, retrieved their horses, and stood in the inspection line at the post house.

  “As soon as we get past this checkpoint,” Hirata said, “we’ll be on our way to Izu.”

  Police Commissioner Hoshina had been imprisoned in a square guard tower on the wall that separated the palace grounds from the forest preserve. The tower had white plaster walls, black trim, a barred window overlooking each direction, and a four-gabled tile roof. Sentries stood on the walkway atop the wall, guarding doors on either side of the tower. Sano approached its third door, set in the base of the wall and also guarded. Beyond the tower, the oaks, conifers, and maples of the forest preserve loomed against an overcast sky. Locusts whined in the hot, humid air as Sano climbed a flight of stairs to the makeshift prison.

  Although samurai awaiting execution were usually kept under house arrest in their own homes, Hoshina lived at Chamberlain Yanagisawa’s estate, where Yanagisawa had refused to have him. Condemned men were usually barred from Edo Castle, but the shogun valued Hoshina as insurance of Lady Keisho-in’s survival and wanted him close at hand. Therefore, the palace officials had hastily improvised a jail for Hoshina.

  More guards unbarred the door at the top of the stairs and admitted Sano to the tower room. Inside, Hoshina crouched, his back against the wall, arms resting limp on his knees. As Sano entered, Hoshina looked up, eager and expectant.

  “Greetings,” Sano said quietly.

  Hoshina’s face fell. “Oh. It’s you,” he said.

  Obviously, he’d hoped to see Chamberlain Yanagisawa. Sano pitied Hoshina’s disappointment and hated to tell him Yanagisawa wasn’t coming.

  After the meeting at which the shogun had almost condemned Sano and Yanagisawa to execution along with Hoshina, the two of them had walked out of the palace together.

  “Hoshina-san must be interrogated,” Sano had told Yanagisawa as they strode down the gravel path through the grounds.

  “You do it,” Yanagisawa said, clearly intending to distance himself from Hoshina. His cool expression showed no sign that he’d just narrowly escaped death, nor guilt over how he’d treated his lover. “Report to me afterward.” Then he and his guards left Sano and walked away.

  First, Sano returned home and summoned his detectives to the courtyard. “I want to know who delivered the ransom letter,” he told them. “Interview the soldiers assigned to guard the castle perimeter last night. Ask them whether they saw who posted the letter on the wall, or anyone loitering outside the castle and acting suspicious. If they did, get a description of the person. Ifnot, search the neighborhoods around the castle for witnesses. And if you find the person, arrest him and notify me at once. He may be our best lead to the kidnappers.”

  Now Sano beheld the other possible lead. Hoshina seemed shrunken by despondency. His head drooped; anguish hollowed his eyes. Sano experienced a pang of concern for him. Many a samurai would consider suicide as a way to escape such ignominious circumstances.

  “Is there anything you need?” Sano said. Pretending an interest in Hoshina’s physical comfort, he scrutinized the cell.

  The palace officials who’d furnished the prison had paid respect to Hoshina’s rank. Tatami cushioned the floor, and a rolled-up futon occupied a corner. Incense smoked on the window ledges, repelling mosquitoes and masking the foul odor of the stagnant moat below the tower on the forest side. A black-and-gilt lacquer tray contained soup, rice, prawns, vegetables, and tea on matching dishware. Against the stone wall stood a lidded lacquer chamber pot. But Sano saw, to his relief, nothing that Hoshina might use against himself.

  “Don’t worry—they took away my swords,” Hoshina said in a sardonic voice. “They won’t even give me chopsticks to eat with.” He flapped a hand at the untouched meal. “And the guards watch me every moment. No doubt someone has advised the shogun not to let me commit seppuku and deprive the kidnappers of the execution they want in exchange for his mother.”

  The absent Chamberlain Yanagisawa formed a third, almost tangible presence in the room. Sano knew that Yanagisawa had specified the terms of Hoshina’s imprisonment, and obviously Hoshina had guessed.

  “But I don’t intend to die by my own hand, or anyone else’s, just yet.” Hoshina straightened his posture as some of his old fight rekindled.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Sano said.

  Hoshina snorted. “I’ll bet you are.”

  His acrid tone implied that Sano only cared about him for selfish reasons, and Sano acknowledged this as the truth. Hoshina was the new key to the mystery of who had kidnapped the women, and he was important to Reiko’s survival.

  “By the way, I suppose I owe you thanks for persuading the shogun to delay my death,” Hoshina said grudgingly. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t feel much like celebrating right now.”

  Sano nodded, allowing Hoshina to vent his bitterness. Empathy diminished Sano’s hatred for his foe. A different turn of fate could have put him in Hoshina’s position.

  “What brings you here, when everyone else is avoiding me like a fatal disease?” Hoshina said.

  How quickly men in the bakufu ostracized colleagues in trouble, Sano thought. “I agreed to save your life,” he said. “I’m here to finish what I started.”

  Hoshina gave him a look that mixed contempt with gratitude. “I might almost think you were the true epitome of honor, if I didn’t know you have an ulterior motive.”

  “We all have our own interests,” Sano said, “but mine coincide with yours. I want to catch the kidnappers and rescue the hostages. You want me to do it before the shogun’s seven days are up and he executes you.”

  Hoshina conceded with a wry twist of his lips.

  “I need your help,” Sano said. “Will you answer some questions?”

  “I’m your captive slave,” Hoshina said.

  Sano crouched beside Hoshina. “Who do you think wrote this?” Reaching inside his surcoat
, Sano removed the ransom letter.

  “I have no idea.” Hoshina exhaled in hopelessness.

  “Does the poem mean anything to you?” Sano asked.

  He spread the letter on the floor. As they pored over the lines, Hoshina said, “Dragons symbolize power, fertility, good fortune. Every child learns the story of the Dragon King who rules the sea. But this poem makes no sense. Can it mean that the Dragon King is the kidnapper and he’s holding the women in his underwater palace?” Hoshina gave a humorless laugh. “It sounds like the rambling of a madman.”

  Sano nodded, because who except a madman would kidnap the shogun’s mother to force the execution of the chief police commissioner? He could have added that dragons brought rain to grow crops and kept the forces of nature in balance. But although he thought the poem must contain clues, he and Hoshina needed to make progress, not discuss cosmology. “Do you recognize the writing?” Sano asked.

  “No,” said Hoshina, “but then I never pay much attention to calligraphy.”

  Another disappointment. Sano had hoped Hoshina would provide more information.

  “If you wish I had all the answers, just think how much I wish I did,” Hoshina said with a grimace.

  “Let’s move on to the question of what murder the letter refers to,” said Sano.

  “I’m not a murderer,” Hoshina declared. Anger animated his voice, colored his pallid complexion. “That’s what’s so outrageous about this whole situation: Somebody I don’t know wants me punished for a crime I didn’t commit.”

  Sano eyed him with skepticism. “You’ve never killed?”

  “Well, of course I have.” Hoshina looked as though Sano had said something absurd. “I’m a police official. I’ve killed in the line of duty. That’s not murder, because it’s sanctioned by the law.”

  “Many might think otherwise,” said Sano, “especially someone who blames you for a death and bears a grudge. The kidnapper appears to fit that category. Tell me the names of everyone you’ve killed, and their family members and associates. The details on when, where, and how you killed them might also help.”