His wishes were in vain. Bushido and conscience pressured Sano to take the high, difficult road.
“I can’t.” At this moment Sano hated himself more than he’d ever hated Yanagisawa or the shogun. But he’d gone after Yanagisawa because he and Yoshisato were committing treason. He couldn’t look the other way for Hirata any more than he could let Ienobu inherit the regime after setting up two murders. “I have to treat Hirata like the criminal he is.”
* * *
HIRATA OPENED EYES crusted with dried tears and blood. Flat on his back, he gazed up at a low ceiling studded with rocks. Haloes of light rimmed lanterns mounted on stands around him. Slow, raspy breaths filled his dry nostrils with the smell of dank earth and pungent chemicals. His body felt stiff and numb, his mind fogged with a sleep too heavy to be natural. A droning sound filled his ears. Hirata tried to sit up.
Tight cuffs around his wrists and ankles bound him to the padded surface on which he lay. Panic dispelled some of the sleep-fog. Hirata raised his head. He saw his torso and limbs encased in white cloth bandages stained with green ooze. On his left, a ceramic bottle hung upside down on a pole. The bottle had a long, thin metal tube inserted in its stopper. The tube’s other end was stuck in his arm and tied in place with string. The place seemed to be an underground cave. Tahara and Kitano bent over a hearth on which an iron pot simmered. Their lips moved. The sound was their voices chanting.
“Where am I?” His voice was a feeble croak.
Kitano continued chanting as he stirred the pot. Tahara came to stand over Hirata. “In a safe place where no one will bother us.” His unfriendly face was still bruised from the battle. Not much time had passed since then.
“What happened?” he asked.
“General Otani punished you,” Tahara answered.
“What are you doing to me?”
“Secret medical treatments and mystical healing spells. Your wounds are pretty bad.”
Still chanting, Kitano pushed a strange apparatus on wheels toward Hirata. It was a bellows connected by a metal tube to the neck of a large ceramic jar. Kitano fetched the pot from the hearth. His scarred face was covered with raw, stitched-up gashes from his fight with Deguchi. He poured the pot’s contents into the jar, corked it, and inserted another, thinner tube through the cork. Tahara connected the end of the thin tube to a leather mask, which he pressed over Hirata’s nose and mouth. Kitano pumped the bellows. Hirata moaned as steam laced with sweet chemicals invaded his lungs.
“Why…?” The mask muffled his voice. The fog of sleep thickened.
“Why are we healing you instead of letting you die?” Tahara said, his hostile voice echoing in the cave. “Because General Otani has further use for you.”
With his last waking thought Hirata wished he were dead. That was better than being saved in order that he could continue his treasonous collaboration with Tahara, Kitano, and the ghost. Worse trouble was coming. But a glint of hope eased his anguish, illuminated the noxious black sleep that overtook Hirata’s consciousness.
As long as he was alive, he had a chance to destroy his enemies, make amends to his family and Sano, and restore his honor.
ALSO BY LAURA JOH ROWLAND
The Incense Game
The Rōnin’s Mistress
The Cloud Pavilion
The Fire Kimono
The Snow Empress
Red Chrysanthemum
The Assassin’s Touch
The Perfumed Sleeve
The Dragon King’s Palace
The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria
Black Lotus
The Samurai’s Wife
The Concubine’s Tattoo
The Way of the Traitor
Bundori
Shinjū
About the Author
LAURA JOH ROWLAND is the author of sixteen previous novels in her acclaimed series of thrillers set in feudal Japan; two of them have been named among the Best Mysteries of the Year by Publishers Weekly, while a third was declared one of the five best historical mystery novels by The Wall Street Journal. Her most recent novel, The Incense Game, won the Reviewers’ Choice Award from RT Book Reviews for Best Historical Mystery. She lives in New York City.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE SHOGUN’S DAUGHER. Copyright © 2013 by Laura Joh Rowland. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Cover design by Laura Klynstra
Cover photographs: woman © CulturaRM/Masterfile; flowers © malamalama/Shutterstock.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Rowland, Laura Joh.
The Shogun’s daughter: a novel of Feudal Japan / Laura Joh Rowland.—First edition.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-250-02861-7 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-02862-4 (e-book)
1. Sano, Ichiro (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Japan—History—Genroku period, 1688–1704—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3568.O934S34 2013
813'.54—dc23
2013013933
eISBN 9781250028624
First Edition: September 2013
The Shogun's Daughter: A Novel of Feudal Japan (Sano Ichiro Mysteries) Page 36
