Sano Ichiro 8 The Dragon's King Palace (2003)

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “She is suffering from a deficiency of blood, fluid, and ki—life energy,” Dr. Kitano said. “There is also internal festering and inflammation.”

  “Can you heal her?” Hoshina said.

  “I’ll do my best,” Dr. Kitano said, “but it will be a miracle if she lives.”

  Hoshina cupped his chin in his hand and brooded over Suiren while the tambourine rang and the priest chanted. The maid represented a chance to save Lady Keisho-in and solidify Chamberlain Yanagisawa’s position in court long enough for the shogun to name Yoritomo his heir. But Hoshina had other, personal reasons for wanting Suiren to recover. If he could extract from her a clue that led to the kidnappers, he would win the shogun’s esteem and gratitude for himself. The bakufu would have to recognize him as a power in his own right, not just as Yanagisawa’s lover. And Yanagisawa would have to treat Hoshina with the respect he craved instead of always demeaning him.

  “I must question Suiren about the kidnapping,” Hoshina told Dr. Kitano. “Wake her up.”

  Concern shadowed the doctor’s eyes. “It is not advisable to disturb her. She needs rest.”

  Hoshina experienced overwhelming impatience. Unless he could find the kidnappers and rescue Lady Keisho-in, he might never make his name in the bakufu. He and Yanagisawa might fall so far from the shogun’s grace that their plans for the future could never work. And failure, like success, posed serious personal ramifications for Hoshina. His lover admired skill and despised incompetence, and so far, Hoshina had managed to do everything Yanagisawa asked—but what if the kidnapping case proved more than he could handle? Would Yanagisawa cease to want him?

  Even as Hoshina rued his love for a man as difficult yet alluring as the chamberlain, the thought of losing Yanagisawa stabbed terror into his heart.

  “Suiren may be the only person who can give me information about who kidnapped the shogun’s mother,” Hoshina said. “It’s imperative that she speak to me.”

  “She must not exert her vital energy, which is already depleted,” Dr. Kitano said. “And unconsciousness spares her terrible pain. Please give her time to grow stronger.”

  “I don’t have time,” Hoshina said, angered by the physician’s calm, authoritative manner. “If Suiren dies without telling what she knows, we may never get Lady Keisho-in back or capture the criminals.” And Hoshina might never achieve his desires. He rose, squared his shoulders, and glared down at Dr. Kitano, asserting his rank. “I order you to awaken her now.”

  Dr. Kitano’s composure wavered as he beheld Hoshina. “The honor code of my profession forbids me to endanger the life of my patient.”

  Hoshina thought the man was less concerned about violating the code than afraid that he would kill the only witness to the kidnapping and the shogun would punish him. “I’ll take responsibility for whatever happens to her,” Hoshina said. Better that Suiren should die during an interrogation than before he ever tried to question her.

  Nodding reluctantly, Dr. Kitano called to his apprentices: “Bring me some musk.”

  An apprentice brought a ceramic cup full of coarse powder to Dr. Kitano. The acrid, animal scent of the musk tinged the air. Hoshina watched Dr. Kitano hold the cup near Suiren’s nose. As the maid inhaled, her nostrils quivered; her lips twitched in an involuntary grimace. Her eyelids fluttered slowly open. Hoshina nodded his approval to Dr. Kitano.

  “Try not to upset her,” the physician warned.

  Hoshina knelt beside the maid, leaning over her. “Suiren-san,” he said. Her blurry gaze wandered over his face. Fear enlivened her still features. “Don’t be afraid. You’re safe at home in the castle.” Hoshina spoke gently, stifling his excitement. “I’m the police commissioner of Edo.”

  Breath eased from Suiren; her face relaxed. Her eyelids drooped, veiling her again in sleep.

  “Give her another whiff of that musk,” Hoshina ordered Dr. Kitano.

  The doctor complied with reluctance. “This medicine is very potent, and repeated doses are dangerous to persons in weak health.”

  When Suiren smelled the musk, her eyes blinked wide. She looked as alarmed as though she’d forgotten, or hadn’t understood, who Hoshina was and what he’d told her.

  “Do you remember traveling on the Tōkaidō with Lady Keisho-in?” Hoshina asked. “Do you remember being attacked?”

  Her eyes clouded with confusion; then terror glazed them. A piteous groan shivered her body.

  “Did you see who abducted Lady Keisho-in?” Hoshina pressed as his urgency mounted.

  Groaning louder, the maid tossed her head from side to side. She writhed and gasped in pain. Sweat moistened her complexion, which had turned gray.

  “It’s all right. Be still,” Dr. Kitano soothed, stroking her forehead. He fixed a stern gaze on Hoshina. “She can’t speak. And whatever she remembers is upsetting her. That’s enough.”

  Hoshina ignored the physician. He wondered why Suiren had lived while everyone else in Keisho-in’s entourage had died. An idea occurred to him. “Are you the kidnappers’ accomplice?” he said, grasping Suiren by her shoulders. “Did you tell them that Lady Keisho-in would be traveling on the Tōkaidō? Did they spare your life as a reward?”

  Suiren shrieked. The blank light of panic shone in her eyes. Thrashing under the sheet, she resembled a moth trying to escape a cocoon.

  Dr. Kitano said to Hoshina, “If she doesn’t calm down, she’ll hurt herself. Leave her alone.” His voice was harsh with censure.

  “Who kidnapped Lady Keisho-in?” Hoshina demanded. “Where did they take her? Tell me!”

  Suiren’s mouth formed silent words, but her thrashing weakened. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and the lids closed. Her gasps subsided into slow, somnolent breathing as unconsciousness reclaimed her. Frantic because she’d appeared ready to talk, Hoshina shook the maid.

  “Wake up!” he shouted.

  “Stop!” Dr. Kitano dragged Hoshina away from Suiren. “You’ll hurt her!”

  Furious, Hoshina pulled free of Dr. Kitano. “Use the musk on her again. Quick!”

  “No more,” Dr. Kitano said, with the stony defiance of a man driven to stand by his principles no matter the cost. “Your interrogation will be the death of her. And whatever she knows, she’ll take to her grave.”

  Hoshina stood, panting in frustrated ire. He gazed helplessly at Suiren, who lay unmoving and incommunicative. His hands clenched tight with his need to wrest facts from her, but he accepted temporary defeat. Recovering his composure, he addressed Dr. Kitano: “You’d better keep her alive.”

  His tone implied the threat he didn’t speak. He turned to his men. “Stay here and guard Suiren. Don’t let anyone else talk to her.” He must prevent Sano from questioning the maid and eliciting who and where the kidnappers were. “I’ll be at the palace. If she wakes up, notify me at once.”

  He stalked out of the sickroom. Outside, he paused under the pine trees. The hot, brassy light of late afternoon streamed through the boughs. Temple bells echoed across the city, heralding another hour gone. That half a day had passed while his inquiries had gotten nowhere shook Hoshina’s confidence. And he began to doubt his theory that Suiren knew the kidnappers and had helped them arrange the crime. Would they have wounded an accomplice so badly? Lesser injuries would have sufficed to make everyone think she was an innocent victim who’d escaped death by a fluke of luck. Perhaps Suiren was indeed innocent; perhaps she didn’t know who had abducted her mistress. But the circumstances didn’t completely discount Hoshina’s theory. The kidnappers might have accidentally hurt the maid worse than they’d intended—or meant to kill her so that she could never betray them.

  Hoshina decided that his theory merited further exploration. Although Suiren couldn’t speak, there were other ways to find out whether she was his best lead or a dead end. He hastened out the gate and up the walled passage toward the palace women’s quarters. There resided the ladies Suiren had lived with, as well as the female palace officials who’d supervised her. If she was p
arty to the kidnapping, they might provide the clues Hoshina needed, whether or not she survived.

  And one good clue would put him ahead of everyone else who was looking for Lady Keisho-in.

  * * *

  10

  Lady Yanagisawa, if you can hear, please listen to me,” Reiko said.

  She knelt beside Lady Yanagisawa, as she’d done most of the day. The glaring sun had dimmed and shifted westward, but still Lady Yanagisawa lay in her same, deathlike state. Her vacant eyes fixed on the ceiling, where the holes showed a sky tinged with the gold of approaching twilight. Outside, the windless weather quieted the forest. The waves lapped so quietly that Reiko could barely hear them above the chirping of songbirds and screeching from the gulls. Reiko clasped Lady Yanagisawa’s limp hand. It was cold despite the ovenlike heat in the prison. Sweat trickled down Reiko’s face, and she wiped her forehead with her sleeve. Anxiety mounted in her after countless failed attempts to communicate with Lady Yanagisawa.

  “We’re still trapped,” Reiko said. “We still don’t know why those men kidnapped us or who they are, because they won’t say. Two of them came back this afternoon, but they just looked us over, then left.”

  Though Reiko had often heard the men outside during the day, they hadn’t returned again. Flies buzzed around the empty food pail and full waste buckets. The heat worsened the stench. Mosquitoes whined and stung, and the women had red, itchy welts on their skin; yet hunger and discomfort were the least of Reiko’s concerns.

  “The kidnappers can’t be intending to just let us go,” she told Lady Yanagisawa. “They mean some kind of harm, I know it. I’m so afraid Lady Keisho-in will provoke them again, no matter how hard I try to stop her.”

  Reiko looked across the room at Keisho-in. The shogun’s mother now lay asleep, snoring quietly, but she’d fumed and pounded on the door for much of the day. When the two men had come back, she’d ranted at them as though she’d forgotten how they’d hurt her that morning. Fortunately the men had ignored Keisho-in’s diatribe… this time. Reiko didn’t know how long their patience would last.

  “We have to escape.” Reiko leaned close to whisper in Lady Yan-agisawa’s ear: “I’ve thought of a way, but I can’t do it alone. I don’t trust Lady Keisho-in to help me. And Midori can’t—she’s about to have her baby any time now.”

  A grunt issued from Midori, also asleep. Her body stiffened and she clutched her belly, then relaxed and sighed. Her occasional cramps had come more frequently as the day passed, and Reiko dreaded the onset of labor.

  “I need you,” Reiko said to Lady Yanagisawa. Urgency raised her voice. “So please come out of this trance or whatever it is. Please help me save us!”

  Lady Yanagisawa didn’t reply. Not the slightest glimmer of comprehension showed in her dull, lifeless eyes. Reiko’s patience toward the woman was fading fast.

  “Maybe it’s hard for you to bear what’s happening,” she said. “Maybe you’d rather hide inside yourself than face up to things. But think of your daughter. Kikuko-chan is at home, waiting for you. What will become of her if you don’t return? She’ll be so sad. She won’t understand why her mother is gone. And who will take care of her?”

  Lady Yanagisawa’s hand drooped flaccid in Reiko’s. Only her slow breathing indicated that she wasn’t dead.

  “I know your child means the world to you. You can’t abandon her,” Reiko said, trembling with anger now. “For Kikuko-chan’s sake, you must recover your wits and do something besides just lie there!”

  No response came. Desperate, Reiko said, “Remember your husband. You’ve told me how much you love him and how much you wish he would love you. Unless we get home, you’ll never see him again. He must know you’ve been kidnapped. He’s probably wondering where you are and what’s happened to you. Often, people don’t discover how valuable something is until they’ve lost it. Absence increases affection… and do you know what I think?

  “I think your husband is realizing that he loves you. Your kidnapping has taught him the error of his ways. He’s sorry he mistreated you and wants a chance to repent.” Reiko told herself that the circumstances justified the lie. “Isn’t that just what you’ve always dreamed of? But you can’t have it if we die here. You’ll never get to enjoy your husband’s love unless you make an effort to go home to him.”

  Reiko scrutinized Lady Yanagisawa, hoping that the promise of her heart’s desire would stir the woman to action. But Lady Yanagisawa didn’t even flinch. Exhausted and frustrated, Reiko dropped Lady Yanagisawa’s hand. Talking to someone who couldn’t or wouldn’t hear was no use. She must try the only other way she knew to revive Lady Yanagisawa.

  As a young girl Reiko had learned the martial arts from a sensei hired by her father. The sensei had also taught her the ancient Chinese healing technique of applying pressure to the surface of the skin to stimulate the human body’s natural curative abilities. She’d learned how pressing, striking, or piercing specific places on the body relieved pain in other areas, influenced the functioning of internal organs, and cured maladies both physical and mental. That ancient method could work to dramatic effect, Reiko knew from personal experience. When she’d given birth to Masahiro, the midwife had used it to relieve the labor pains and calm her. She remembered techniques for promoting the circulation of the blood and life force because she often practiced them on herself. But she’d never practiced on anyone else. The method released powerful energies that could be dangerous when mishandled by an amateur. She only hoped she could revive and not harm Lady Yanagisawa.

  With the middle finger of her right hand, Reiko palpated Lady Yanagisawa’s upper lip just below the nose, at a potent point—a juncture between internal pathways that carried ki, the life force. Applying pressure here could revive someone who’d fainted and ease extreme emotional agitation. Reiko pressed, leaning her weight on her fingertip. Beneath the cool, moist surface of Lady Yanagisawa’s upper lip she felt the inner tension that blocked the flow of ki. She counted to five, lifted her finger, then reapplied the pressure. She detected a faint, throbbing pulse—a good sign of renewed circulation. Again and again she pressed the potent point, and each time the pulse strengthened a little. But Lady Yanagisawa remained as inert as a corpse.

  Reiko moved to the junctures known as the Bubbling Springs, located between the fleshy pads on the soles of the feet. These were spots designated for the treatment of shock. Reiko clasped one of Lady Yanagisawa’s feet in each hand and pushed her thumbs into the potent points. After twenty cycles of pressure and release, Reiko felt distinct, rhythmic pulses in the feet. The ki should be speeding through Lady Yanagisawa, reanimating her muscles, balancing her emotions, wakening her mind. When nothing happened, Reiko supposed that the trauma of the kidnapping had blocked other energy pathways.

  She rolled Lady Yanagisawa onto her stomach, then measured four finger-widths from her spine at waist level, locating the potent points named the Sea of Vitality. Reiko pressed, waited, and released, again and again, so many times she lost count. Her hands ached; she gasped with exertion. Now she sensed Lady Yanagisawa’s ki surging through veins and tissues. Suddenly a deep, ululating groan burst from Lady Yanagisawa. Her limbs began to thrash; her body jerked.

  Reiko sprang back, frightened that she’d overstimulated Lady Yanagisawa into convulsions. Then Lady Yanagisawa heaved onto her back. Shuddering all over, she sat upright, hands clawing the floor, and stared wild-eyed at Reiko.

  “Where am I?” The question burst from Lady Yanagisawa in a loud, hoarse voice. “What happened?”

  Reiko smiled with relief that Lady Yanagisawa had come back to life. Keisho-in and Midori, startled awake by the commotion, blinked in puzzlement. Lady Yanagisawa gazed around the room. As she recognized her surroundings, a look of horror came into her eyes.

  “Oh, no,” she wailed, her face crumpling. “I dreamed that I was home with Kikuko-chan. It was so peaceful. Why did I have to wake up?” She lay down, curled her knees to her chest, and covered her h
ead with her arms. Sobs wracked her. “I want to go back to sleep!”

  “Please do,” Keisho-in said crossly. “Your noise is getting on my nerves.”

  Reiko pounced on Lady Yanagisawa and forced apart her arms, exposing her anguish-stricken face. “You can’t hide anymore. I won’t let you.”

  “Please, no, leave me alone.” Lady Yanagisawa squeezed her eyes shut, blinding herself to Reiko and the horrible fact of their captivity. “I want to dream again. I want Kikuko-chan.”

  Reiko was furious that Lady Yanagisawa preferred unconsciousness to taking action, even as she pitied the woman’s suffering. She shouted, “If you want Kikuko-chan, then stop this nonsense right now!”

  She slapped Lady Yanagisawa’s cheek. Lady Yanagisawa uttered a cry of pained surprise. Her eyes opened; her sobs halted as she gaped at Reiko.

  “It’s your duty to fight your way home to your daughter,” Reiko said, glad that she’d finally gotten Lady Yanagisawa’s attention, yet ashamed of hitting the woman. “It’s your duty to help me save Lady Keisho-in and Midori. Do you understand? Are you going to behave yourself? Or do I have to slap you again?”

  All the resistance went out of Lady Yanagisawa. She uncurled her body and sat up, though with slow movements and a desolate expression that bespoke her reluctance.

  “Will you help me?” Reiko said, hopeful yet cautious. Lady Yanagisawa bowed her head and nodded. Triumph at her small victory heartened Reiko, despite Lady Yanagisawa’s lack of enthusiasm. Reiko beckoned Keisho-in and Midori. The pair seated themselves close to her and Lady Yanagisawa.