The Ronin's Mistress: A Novel (Sano Ichiro Novels)

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “You were married to Lord Asano. You knew Oishi. And I think that we women often see and hear more than people give us credit for.”

  Lady Asano clasped her rough hands together, as if protecting something in the space between them.

  “Oishi and his men put their lives in jeopardy to avenge your husband,” Reiko reminded her. “Shouldn’t you help them now that they’re in trouble?”

  Lady Asano looked down at her hands. “What are they saying about what they did?”

  Reiko didn’t want to be the one answering questions, but unless she complied, Lady Asano would probably tell her nothing. “Oishi says that Kira bullied your husband because he refused to pay a bribe. He says your husband attacked Kira because he snapped. Oishi’s son claims that the forty-seven rōnin always intended to avenge Lord Asano, and they waited two years to put Kira off guard.”

  When Lady Asano remained silent and uncooperative, Reiko said, “But Oishi’s wife tells a different story. She says Oishi never cared about avenging your husband’s death. She claims he killed Kira because it was Kira’s fault that he became a rōnin.”

  “Ukihashi.” Lady Asano said the name as if spitting out poison. Her head came up. “I’m not surprised at anything she does anymore.”

  “It sounds as if the two of you have bad blood,” Reiko said, curious. “Why?”

  “She was my chief lady-in-waiting. We were friends. Or so I thought.” Lady Asano’s gaze wouldn’t meet Reiko’s. “I’d rather not talk about her.”

  Reiko dropped the matter, for now. “But there are other conflicting stories about the vendetta. My husband doesn’t know which to believe, and neither will the supreme court. If you have information that could help the forty-seven rōnin, you’d better speak up.”

  Lady Asano responded with the coy smile of a girl who has secrets she refuses to share. She seemed immature despite the fact that she was in her late twenties. “There are a lot of things that never came out right after my husband attacked Kira and committed ritual suicide.”

  Frustration beset Reiko. “Then tell me. Or my husband will take you to Edo Castle and make you tell the supreme court.”

  Faced with this disagreeable alternative, Lady Asano pouted, then said, “I suppose now is a good time for the secrets to start coming out.”

  20

  1701 March

  LADY ASANO STOOD outside the mansion in her husband’s estate in Edo. She waited anxiously for Lord Asano, who was due to arrive today. They’d been apart for eight months because the law required all daimyo to spend four months of each year in the capital and the rest in their provinces while their wives lived in Edo all year round. This was one method by which the Tokugawa regime controlled them and prevented insurrections. But even though Lady Asano was eager to see her husband, she fretted. In what condition would he be?

  Lord Asano rode in the gate, accompanied by his entourage. He leaped from his horse, as energetic as when he’d left Harima Province two months ago. He laughed with exuberance as he ran up to Lady Asano.

  “It’s so good to see you, my dearest wife!” His youthful, handsome face shone.

  Lady Asano smiled, but her heart dropped. She feared his gay moods because she knew what happened after they passed.

  “Let’s celebrate!” Lord Asano called to his men, who’d barely gotten off their horses to stretch their stiff muscles.

  The homecoming party lasted two days and nights. Lord Asano brought in musicians, singers, and dancers to entertain his household. Wine flowed at a continuous banquet. When it was over, everyone except Lord Asano was exhausted. He said, “I want to go out on the town!”

  Lady Asano couldn’t stop him; no one could—he was the ruler of his domain. She said to Oishi, his chief retainer, “You’ll take care of him, won’t you?”

  “Never fear.” Oishi was used to ensuring that Lord Asano came to no harm.

  They were gone for three days. Lord Asano gambled in the Nihonbashi merchant quarter, drank in teahouses, and enjoyed expensive courtesans in the Yoshiwara licensed pleasure quarter. Lady Asano waited at home until Oishi brought Lord Asano back in a palanquin. Lord Asano was worn out, sick, and miserable. As Lady Asano put him to bed, he moaned, “I want to die!”

  Early in their marriage Lady Asano had hated him for his wild swings between extravagant behavior that humiliated her and his black despair. But she’d learned that he couldn’t help himself; he was possessed by two evil spirits that yanked him up and down like a puppet on a pulley. Now she felt sorry for him. As she tried to nurse him back to health, he said, “Leave me alone.” All he wanted to do was sleep.

  A few days later, Oishi brought bad news. “Imperial envoys are coming to Edo. The shogun has ordered you to be their host.”

  Lord Asano’s eyes went dark with horror in his sickly, unshaven face. “I can’t do it.”

  “You must,” Oishi said.

  He got Lord Asano out of bed, washed and groomed and dressed him. They went to Edo Castle, where Kira, the master of ceremonies, would instruct Lord Asano on court ritual. When they returned that night, Lady Asano watched her husband practice the lessons he’d been given.

  “I’m going to blunder in front of everyone!” he wailed.

  Things went downhill as the lessons continued. Lady Asano sensed that there was more afoot than his usual despair and the strain of the impending visit from the envoys. One night while he lay in bed weeping, she said, “Husband, what’s wrong?”

  “It’s Kira,” Lord Asano confessed. “He has it in for me.”

  “But why? You and he hardly know each other.”

  “He knows about the things I do. He says I have everything and I’m throwing it away. He calls me a disgrace to the samurai code of honor.”

  “He’s trying to tear you down because he’s envious,” Lady Asano suggested.

  “But he’s right.” Lord Asano sobbed. “I am a disgrace. He taunts me and goads me to defend myself, and I can’t, and he laughs. He says I should put myself out of my misery.”

  Lady Asano was horrified, and furious at Kira. “The old devil! Don’t listen!”

  Lord Asano didn’t speak of Kira again. He let Oishi drag him to the lessons every day, even though he couldn’t eat or sleep. He was a wreck, his eyes red, his face twitching, his body trembling. Every day he came home looking worse.

  Until the day he didn’t come home.

  That was the day Oishi brought Lady Asano the terrible news: Lord Asano had drawn his sword and attacked Kira inside Edo Castle.

  Lady Asano was allowed to see her husband one last time before he committed seppuku that evening. “Why did you do it?” she cried.

  “I couldn’t take any more,” Lord Asano said. Triumph shone through his misery. “At least I defended my honor.”

  * * *

  “INSTEAD OF DESTROYING Kira, my husband destroyed himself,” Lady Asano told Reiko. Sitting in the bare, cold chamber of the convent where she’d been consigned to live out her life, she said bitterly, “Kira won.”

  “Not for good,” Reiko pointed out. She now understood why Lady Asano had lusted for Kira’s blood. She sympathized with Lady Asano because she herself felt the same toward Chamberlain Yanagisawa, who tormented her own husband. Reiko tasted the fear that Sano would someday crumble as Lord Asano had. “Kira got his just deserts.”

  “That’s some consolation.” Lady Asano smiled but quickly sobered. “I’ve confessed my husband’s secret—that he was weak and Kira got the best of him. I’ve dishonored his memory.” She appealed anxiously to Reiko. “Will it save Oishi and the other rōnin?”

  Reiko had begun to think that Kira was the villain in the case and the forty-seven rōnin should be pardoned. “I’ll tell my husband about it. He’ll tell the supreme court. We’ll see.”

  She would see whether it led to a verdict that the shogun thought was satisfactory, and whether Sano would regain his status or be permanently separated from their family.

  * * *

  SA
NO CONSULTED THE top expert on samurai clan lineage, an old historian. The historian said, “Lord Asano and Kira’s brother-in-law, Lord Uesugi, are related by several marriages, but Lord Uesugi died before Lord Asano was born. I’ve heard the rumor that Kira poisoned Lord Uesugi, but it faded a few years after Lord Uesugi’s death. I would be surprised if Lord Asano cared what had happened to a distant relation he’d never met.”

  The story that Kajikawa, the keeper of the castle, had told Sano seemed to amount to nothing. If Sano wanted dirt on Kira, he had to dig in other ground.

  He located Kira’s three former subordinates and two pupils whom Kira had been instructing in etiquette up until the day before his murder. They were in the chamber where the shogun would hold his New Year banquet. The subordinates were samurai in their forties, each the type of conscientious man who kept the government running but would never rise into its upper ranks. They huddled together, arguing about some point of court procedure. The pupils were young officials from the shogun’s retinue, who would have some part in conducting the banquet. They stood about looking bored. Sano gathered the five men for a talk about Kira.

  “What kind of person was he?” Sano asked.

  The onus of answering fell upon a man named Mimura, the new master of ceremonies. Pale, thin, and anxious, he didn’t seem happy to be saddled with his role of elected spokesman or his predecessor’s duties.

  “Kira-san was very dedicated to his job,” Mimura said. His companions nodded.

  “How was Kira to work with?” Sano probed.

  “He was strict about details.”

  Sano gathered that no one here had liked Kira. “Did he take bribes?”

  Mimura paused, torn between his duty to answer honestly and his reluctance to malign his dead superior. “They weren’t excessive.”

  “Is that true of the bribes he took from you?” Sano asked the pupils. They assented, nervously. “Did he treat you well?”

  Put on the spot, one of them echoed Mimura: “He was strict.”

  Sano turned to Kira’s subordinates. “What happened between Kira and Lord Asano? Why did Lord Asano attack Kira?”

  “We wouldn’t know,” Mimura said. “We weren’t there.”

  “Had Kira ever done anything that could be considered corrupt?”

  “Not as far as I know.”

  The five men looked everywhere but at Sano or one another.

  “This is serious,” Sano said. “Forty-seven lives depend on the supreme court, which will base its verdict on the results of my investigation.” The thoroughness of his investigation could determine how well the verdict was received, which in turn would determine his own fate. That made Sano impatient toward these tight-lipped witnesses. “If you know anything that could pertain to the vendetta, it’s your duty to tell me. Do you understand?”

  The men nodded, but no one coughed up any more information.

  Sano perceived something big hidden beneath their caution, like a whale swimming just below the surface of the ocean. He sensed that although each man knew it was there, each wasn’t sure whether the others did. And none wanted to name it.

  * * *

  AFTER HIRATA FINISHED his talk with Toda the spy, he headed toward Kira’s mansion, to get information about Kira from what was left of his household.

  Hirata crossed the Ryōgoku Bridge. In the entertainment district on the other side, visitors braved the cold to patronize stalls that sold shogazake, red-bean cakes, and barley-sugar candy. Troupes of itinerant actors abounded. They came to town every New Year season; when they left, they would take the evil spirits of the old year with them. Dressed in colorful costumes and masks, they performed plays in exchange for a few coins. Hirata paused to watch a troupe whose leader wore the mask of a lion with snarling mouth and wild yellow mane. He juggled three red balls while his legs pranced beneath his tattered red robe. An audience clapped.

  Suddenly Hirata felt his stalker’s aura, the mighty, terrifying pulse. The juggler in the lion mask tossed one of his balls high, high up. As Hirata looked around for the source of the aura, the ball landed in the juggler’s hand, ignited with a loud bang, and burst into orange flames. The audience cheered, thinking it was magic, part of the act. The juggler screamed. His other balls dropped. He hurled the fiery orb away from him. It soared above the audience and vanished in a puff of smoke.

  Hirata stared, amazed.

  The juggler’s sleeve had caught fire. His robe went up in flames. Shrieking, he ran and stumbled, a burning lion on a rampage.

  Cries erupted from the audience. Hirata jumped from his horse, whipping off his coat as he ran. He beat the coat against the flames while the juggler rolled in the snow. After the fire was out, people flocked around the burned man. He sat up and ripped the mask off his head. He was a young fellow with bushy hair and a good-natured face. He held out his hands, looked at them, then patted his body. Everyone exclaimed, because he wasn’t burned at all. The fire had left not one charred patch of skin or fabric.

  The juggler jumped up and bowed, happy to take credit for the best performance of his life, even if he didn’t know how it had happened. The audience showered him with coins.

  The aura thrummed close behind Hirata, so powerfully that it felt like a roll of thunder hitting his back. He turned. A man came striding toward him and stopped within arm’s reach. He was a samurai, his shaved crown bare to the winter day. His aura stirred up a wind that keened around him and Hirata. He wore a dark brown coat and flowing black trousers over his tall, muscular physique. He had a square jaw and features so strong and regular that he could pose for a portrait of the ideal samurai. But his perfection was animated by a left eyebrow that was higher than the right. It and a twinkle in his eyes gave him a rakish appearance.

  Hirata was rattled by the scene he’d just witnessed, and stunned to find himself face to face with his stalker. “Who are you?” He gestured toward the juggler, who was busy picking up coins. “Did you do that? Why have you been following me around? Who’s the priest with the birds? And the soldier I saw when I found the poem?” Hirata ran out of breath. He was shaking with anger and fear.

  The samurai’s left eyebrow rose higher, in amusement. “My name is Tahara.” His voice had a curious quality that was at once smooth and rough, that brought to mind a stream flowing over jagged rocks. When Hirata started to repeat his questions, Tahara lifted his hand. Hirata felt the words die on his tongue, as if they were flies that Tahara had just swatted.

  “We’ll talk when the time is right,” Tahara said.

  His eyes were deep and dark and fathomless behind the twinkle. Hirata’s head ached from the pounding of Tahara’s aura against his mind. Then Tahara turned to walk away.

  Hirata said, “Wait.” His voice felt thick and slow in his throat; its pitch sounded strangely low. People around him moved sluggishly, as if through water. Their voices echoed like bells rung under the sea. Tahara walked with an easy gait, but he flashed across space with the speed of lightning. His image flickered along the entertainment district and across the Ryōgoku Bridge. Hirata watched the receding figure grow smaller until he could no longer see Tahara. The aura faded. Hirata blinked, breathed deeply, and looked around. The world had regained its usual noises and bustling motion.

  “What’s going on?” he said. His voice felt and sounded normal. The ache in his head was gone. But so was the man who could have answered his question. Hirata would have to wait for the right time—whenever that was.

  * * *

  AFTER HE WENT to the palace kitchens to order the food for the shogun’s party, Masahiro couldn’t resist sneaking home to see Okaru.

  He hurried through the castle, afraid that Yoritomo would point out his absence and get him in trouble. His heart beat fast with anticipation as he slipped through a back door of his family’s mansion. He didn’t want to run into anyone who would ask him why he was home early. He reached the private quarters unnoticed and tiptoed down the corridors.

  “Masahiro!”
>
  The sound of his name, called in a high, girlish voice, startled him so much that he jumped and yelped. He turned and saw Taeko.

  “Don’t ever sneak up on me like that!” he hissed.

  Her smile faded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “Never mind,” Masahiro whispered.

  “Why are you whispering?” Taeko said. “And why were you tiptoeing?”

  “It’s none of your business. Go away.”

  Taeko’s lip quivered. She turned and fled.

  Masahiro felt bad because he’d hurt her, which he hadn’t meant to do. Then he heard someone singing quietly. The voice was feminine and off-key but sweet. Masahiro followed the singing to the bath chamber. Steam scented with a floral fragrance seeped from the open door. Okaru sang, missing the high notes. Masahiro heard scrubbing and splashing. He knew it was rude to spy on people while they bathed, but he cautiously peeked.

  Okaru crouched naked on the slatted wooden floor, half turned away from him. Her long hair was pinned up in a knot. She scrubbed her arms with a cloth bag of perfumed rice-bran soap. Her skin gleamed wetly. Her bottom was slim but rounded. When she raised her arm to wash under it, Masahiro saw the curve of her small breast, and the nipple like a pink bud.

  He’d seen naked women before—the housemaids who opened their robes to fan themselves on hot days, the peasant girls who dived for shellfish at the beach—and he’d never thought anything of it. But the excitement that had been growing inside him ever since he’d met Okaru now surged with a force like thunder. Such a strong, strange desire gripped him that he could hardly breathe.

  Oblivious to him, Okaru soaped her chest and stomach; she twisted around to scrub her back. When she washed between her legs, her singing lapsed into a little purr of pleasure. His body’s quickening need dizzied Masahiro. Bewildered by what was happening to him, he was terrified that Okaru would catch him spying on her, but he couldn’t stop.

  Okaru rose, lifting a bucket of water. As she poured the water over herself, she turned. Masahiro stood open-mouthed, watching the water cascade down her breasts. His gaze followed its spill. Her pubis was shaved, the cleft between her legs clearly visible.