Laura Joh Rowland - Sano Ichiro 07 - Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria

by Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria(lit)

  Hoshina involuntarily retreated a step as he perceived how selfish his aims had sounded. "Yes, of course I did. Serving you is my first wish." He hastened to appeal to Yanagisawa's interests: "Don't you want Sano out of the way? Forgive me if you think I've gone against your wishes, but I'm only continuing what you started years ago. This may be the best opportunity to get rid of Sano forever."

  "Now is not the time," Yanagisawa reiterated. "Lord Mitsuyoshi's murder has created many opportunities besides the one you're so eager to seize. You are viewing the situation with too narrow a focus. You've not been in Edo long enough to see the larger picture, or appreciate serious concerns that extend beyond the present time." Impatience colored his voice. "I'm not trying to cheat you of what you want-far from it. So believe me when I say that if my plans go as well as I expect, Sano will become a matter of insignificance to us both."

  "What plans?" Hoshina was completely perplexed; yet he could appreciate the irony of his situation. Night after night, they lay together, naked and vulnerable. Yanagisawa trusted Hoshina with his body-but not all his secrets. He considered knowledge the ultimate power, which he never yielded. Hoshina understood this, but Yanagisawa's distrust hurt him deeply.

  "I went to see my son today," Yanagisawa said.

  The abrupt change of subject disconcerted and baffled Hoshina. Frowning as he attempted to follow the twists and turns of his lover's devious mind, Hoshina said, "Which one?"

  He knew the chamberlain had at least four sons, all born to different women other than his wife. They lived with their mothers in estates outside Edo. Hoshina had learned of their existence via gossip in the bakufu, not from Yanagisawa. He'd heard Yanagisawa periodically visited the children, though the chamberlain had never before mentioned that to Hoshina either.

  "Yoritomo. The eldest. He's sixteen years old now," Yanagisawa said.

  That boy was the child of a former palace lady-in-waiting, Hoshina recalled. The lady, a Tokugawa relative, had been a beauty with whom Yanagisawa had enjoyed a brief affair.

  "Is something wrong? Is your son ill?" Hoshina hoped that a mere family problem, and not dissatisfaction with their life together, had turned Yanagisawa cold toward him.

  "Quite the contrary." A faint, proud smile touched Yanagisawa's mouth. "Yoritomo is the image of myself when I was young. Not as clever or strong-willed, of course. He'll do very well indeed."

  Jealousy pierced Hoshina like a hot needle in his heart. He'd never cared much about the relationship between Yanagisawa and his sons; yet he hated for Yanagisawa to praise anyone after criticizing him.

  "I'm glad you're pleased by your son," Hoshina said stiffly, "but what has he got to do with the murder case? Why is he more important than destroying a man who's defeated and humiliated you so many times?"

  Yanagisawa lifted his eyebrows in surprise. "I've just told you."

  "But I don't understand."

  "You will."

  Yanagisawa's expression softened, but Hoshina perceived this as condescension rather than love. He dreaded offending Yanagisawa, yet couldn't relinquish his campaign against his rival.

  "Sano's influence in the bakufu grows daily," Hoshina said. "His allies include many high officials. And if he solves this case, he'll rise another notch in the shogun's estimation-while everyone else, including us, moves down. He could eventually take your place. Your treatment of him has given him ample cause to hate you. I think he's biding his time until he gains enough power to strike."

  "He won't," Yanagisawa said with offhand confidence.

  "Because of the truce between him and you?" Hoshina couldn't keep the scorn out of his voice. "Your truce is but an unspoken agreement that will last only as long as you both honor it. I say we should take the offensive, break the truce before Sano does, and strike at him now, while he's vulnerable."

  "I'm aware of the hazards of a truce," Yanagisawa said, reproachful. "At present they're of minor concern to me, because I have the advantage over Sano."

  "What advantage is that?" Baffled beyond endurance, Hoshina burst out, "I hate it when you speak in riddles! Why won't you explain what's going on?"

  The chamberlain appeared unaffected by Hoshina's anger. "Certain things are best not spoken outright," Yanagisawa said. "Not even my house is free of spies. I've told you my plans, and it's up to you to figure them out. But I will make one thing clear: You shall not break the truce."

  Hoshina started to protest, but the adamant expression on Yanagisawa's face silenced him. Then Yanagisawa chuckled.

  "Don't look so disappointed," he said. "Just be patient, and I promise you'll be quite satisfied with what happens."

  Although Hoshina wished he could believe Yanagisawa, he couldn't place his faith in schemes he didn't understand, or his trust in a man so unpredictable as his lover. He still considered Sano a threat to the chamberlain's power and his own rise in the bakufu. Hoshina must find a way to advance himself at Sano's expense, without defying his master. But how? Frustrated ambition roiled inside him.

  Yanagisawa smiled; his dark eyes kindled like liquid fire. "That's enough talk of politics for tonight," he said.

  Whatever of his lover's other hints had evaded Hoshina, he could interpret very well the innuendo in Yanagisawa's voice, the curve of his mouth, and the hand he extended. Desire flared in Hoshina; yet he resisted surrender even as he grew erect. How he hated for the chamberlain to rebuke, baffle, taunt, and thwart him, then expect pleasure from him! Hoshina's pride rebelled. For a moment he hated Yanagisawa.

  But need prevailed over resentment. Hoshina craved sex as proof that Yanagisawa still loved him. He let Yanagisawa draw him down onto the bed, the only place in the world where they were equals.

  Outside their chamber, Lady Yanagisawa stood peering in through a chink in the wall. She watched the naked bodies of her husband and his lover entwine, grapple, and heave. Her face remained impassive while she listened to their gasps and moans. As they convulsed in climax, a silent breath eased from her. Then she turned and walked away down the dark, vacant corridor.

  14

  Troops marched through the Nihonbashi merchant district. Their torches smoked in the night air; their footsteps shattered the quiet. They stopped at each house and pounded their fists against closed doors and shutters.

  "Open up!" they shouted. "By orders of the shogun's sosakan-sama, come outside and show yourselves!"

  Men, women, and children, dressed in their nightclothes, poured into the street. They shivered with cold and fright. The neighborhood headman herded them into a line. He and the captain of Sano's search team walked down the line, matching each person to a name on the official neighborhood roster, looking for unlisted women. Soldiers raided the buildings in search of anyone hidden there. They burst into a gambling den, interrupting card games and hustling the gamblers outside.

  The commotion roused Lady Wisteria and Lightning from their slumber in the back room of the gambling den. Lightning threw off the quilt that covered them and leapt upright, fully alert, while Wisteria lay in groggy confusion.

  "What is it?" she mumbled.

  "Get up," Lightning ordered in a hoarse whisper. "Those are soldiers out there. We have to go."

  Terror jolted Wisteria awake, for she understood that the soldiers had come for her. Lightning grabbed her hand, yanking her to her feet.

  "Hurry!" he urged.

  Wisteria was glad they'd slept in their clothes in case of an emergency. While she scrambled for her shoes, he snatched up her bundle of possessions. He hurried her outside to the alley, just as the soldiers rushed through the curtained doorway between the gambling den and their room.

  The bitter cold immediately chilled Wisteria. Her cloak billowed open in the wind, but she had no time to fasten it. Lightning raced along the alley, towing her by the hand. She tripped and fell, emitting a shriek of dismay.

  "Quiet!" Lightning whispered furiously.

  His speed kept her moving. Her knees scraped painfully against the rough ground u
ntil she regained her footing. They veered into another alley, then stumbled through the ruins of a burned house. Wisteria could no longer hear the soldiers, but still Lightning dragged her onward. A thick crescent moon above the roofs illuminated their way along a route that he followed with the ease of an animal that knows its territory.

  They clambered down the bank of a narrow canal, and as they plunged waist-deep through frigid water, the muddy bottom tugged off Wisteria's shoes. Barefoot because courtesans never wore socks, she limped up the opposite bank. Stones and debris hurt her feet. She and Lightning ran through a maze of more dark alleys that stank from privies, garbage, and night soil bins. Wisteria was freezing, her wet garments clinging to her like a coat of ice. Her heart pounded; gasps heaved her chest. But Lightning wasn't even breathing hard. His hand around hers was warm. Would they keep running until she died?

  At last Lightning halted at a building. Wisteria squatted, breathless and limp with exhaustion. Barred windows flanked a door. Lightning knocked: two slow beats, a pause, then three quick ones. The door opened a crack, and light shone into the alley. A man's face, thuggish and unshaven, appeared in the crack. The man eyed Lightning, then opened the door. As Lightning pulled Wisteria into a passage with an earth floor and bare rafters, she saw that the man held a dagger; tattoos on his arms marked him as a gangster. But Wisteria was too glad for sanctuary to care that she recognized this place and knew its evils.

  "Have the soldiers searched this neighborhood yet?" Lightning asked the man.

  The man shook his head. Lightning muttered a curse, and Wisteria feared they must go back out in the night. But Lightning took her down the corridor, past rooms enclosed by partitions. Lamplight shining through the tattered paper silhouetted pairs of embracing, writhing human figures. Wisteria heard moans and grunts; she smelled urine, sweat, and sex. As she and Lightning entered a room where a torn lantern hung above a floor made of wood slats that bordered a large, round, sunken tub of water, Wisteria wanted to laugh and cry. This place was a public bath that doubled as an illegal brothel. She'd escaped one whorehouse, only to take shelter in another.

  But Wisteria was so cold that she trembled uncontrollably, her teeth chattering. The steaming water in the tub seemed like a vision of heaven. Lightning had already begun shedding his wet, filthy garments. Wisteria tore off hers as fast as her shaking hands could manage, but kept the cloth around her head. Her battered feet left bloody spots on the floor. She and Lightning scrubbed themselves with bags of soap, poured buckets of water over their bodies, then sat in the tub, immersed up to their shoulders.

  The hot water engulfed Wisteria; she sighed in bliss. She ignored the scum floating on the water and the room's odor of mildew. Too overwhelmed by relief and fatigue to care what happened next, Wisteria closed her eyes, leaned back against the rim of the tub, and drowsed.

  "Don't get too comfortable," Lightning said. "We can't stay. The soldiers will come eventually. We'll have to leave before then."

  "Please, let's wait just a little while longer," Wisteria murmured.

  Lightning shifted restlessly; the water bobbed. "No place in Edo is safe. We should have taken to the highway this morning, like I wanted to. But no-you wanted to stay."

  His accusing tone set off a warning signal in Wisteria's head and jarred her out of a doze. She saw the malevolent gleam in Lightning's eyes, which shifted rapidly as he stared at her.

  "Because of you, we're being hunted like animals," he said. "Because of you, we may not live to enjoy your freedom."

  Wisteria sat up straight, clasping her knees to her chest. "But we have to stay," she said, needing to justify herself, though fearful of defying him. "That was part of the plan."

  "Your plan. Not mine. I was a fool to agree to it." Lightning snorted in derision. "Why should we care what happens about the murder? We'll leave tonight."

  "I care. I have to know," Wisteria said. "We can't go yet!"

  Earlier today, Lightning had fetched her a news broadsheet containing a story about the sosakan-sama's investigation. She'd read that her yarite had been arrested. She needed to find out what happened to Momoko, and whether other people became implicated in the crime. And she might never hear the news in the distant province where she and Lightning planned to settle. She must watch events unfold-in spite of the danger.

  Ire darkened Lightning's face. "Is satisfying your curiosity more important to you than my life?"

  "No! Of course not!" Wisteria squirmed away, but her back struck the wall of the tub.

  A bitter laugh burst from him. "I should have known. You're just using me. You don't really care about me."

  "But I do care," Wisteria said. Under the water she reached for him, and her hand found his leg. It flinched at her touch. "I love you." If this intense, fearful attraction equaled love, then she did love Lightning. "Your safety is more important to me than my own." Because without him, she couldn't survive.

  He shook his head, spurning persuasion. But as she coiled her hand around his manhood and stroked him, she felt him swell and harden. Arousal parted his lips and arched his neck.

  "If you love me, you wouldn't have gotten me into all this trouble," Lightning said, his voice harshened by desire and anger at her attempt to manipulate him.

  Disbelief startled Wisteria. She withdrew her hand. "I got you in trouble?" Indignant, she forgot caution. "Excuse me, but I'm not the reason we're being hunted. I'm not the one who almost ruined everything for us."

  "Oh, so you're blaming me?"

  The water sloshed as Lightning moved toward her. "Well, let me remind you that it was your plan that started everything."

  "My plan would have worked fine if you'd stuck to it." Wisteria felt his hand close around her ankle, and she pulled back in alarm. "Let me go."

  "You don't tell me what to do," he said, holding tight. As she tried to kick loose from him, his breaths came faster and harder. "I make my own decisions. I'm not your servant. I don't have to listen to you or anyone else."

  Now Wisteria's own temper sparked. The water seemed to grow hotter; sweat trickled down her face. "You should listen," she cried. "Because this time you made a terrible mistake. Our problems are all your fault."

  "Our problem is that you got carried away by anger," Lightning said. "Your grudges will be the death of us."

  There was truth in what he said, Wisteria knew. The same outrage and self-righteousness that had inspired her plan was surging through her now. The bitter animosity that filled her heart now focused on Lightning.

  She shrilled, "What about your grudges? Anyone who offends you had better watch out, because you don't think before you act. You're like a wild beast with no sense!"

  "What did you call me?" His face distorted, teeth bared in a snarl, and his nostrils flared, Lightning indeed looked more animal than human. "You think I'm stupid? You're the one who's stupid if you think I'll let you insult me. I'll show you who's in charge around here."

  Lightning jerked on her ankle, pulling her underwater. Wisteria shrieked as her head submerged. The hot water burned her eyes, filled her nose, gurgled in her mouth. She flailed her arms, fighting to raise herself above the surface, but he had hold of both her legs now, and he was too strong for her. Desperate, Wisteria writhed. Her body smacked against the hard bottom of the tub. She resisted the terrible urge to take a breath. Then Lightning let go. She burst up into the steamy air, gulping for breath. Rivulets streamed off her drenched head-cloth and over her face. In her blurred vision, Lightning loomed huge and monstrous.

  "Apologize for what you said!" he commanded.

  "No!" Wisteria was too incensed by his treatment of her. "You are a beast. I hate you!"

  He planted his hands on her shoulders and shoved her downward. She strained against him while her neck, then her chin, sank beneath the water. "Somebody please help me!"

  The noises from the couples in the brothel continued; no one answered her call. Forced below the surface, Wisteria clawed and kicked Lightning. Her heel
found his groin, and she heard him yell, the sound distorted by the dark, turbulent water that surrounded her. His body heaved up, then crashed down upon her with a tremendous splash. His solid, muscular limbs imprisoned her. An airless vacuum trapped her screams in her throat and constricted her lungs. Her heart felt ready to explode. Panic filled Wisteria. Helpless, she tossed her head from side to side.

  Lightning hauled her up from the water. Her head broke the surface and she inhaled a huge, gulping breath. Then he flung her out of the tub. Her right side hit the slatted floor. Pain jarred her elbow and hip. As she rolled, stunned and gasping, onto her back, Lightning straddled her. He shook her so that her head repeatedly bumped the floor.

  "Are you sorry you insulted me?" he demanded.

  "Yes!" Wisteria screamed, her defiance at last subdued by his brutality. "Please don't hurt me!"

  "Do you love me?"

  "I love you!"