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

by Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria(lit)

  As Hirata unwillingly departed, Lightning and his men closed the windows. Sano beheld the warehouse's blank facade and deserted surroundings. He felt naked and vulnerable without his weapons, and angry at being manipulated into this position. But there had been too many occasions in the past when he'd blamed himself for deaths that he thought he should have prevented. Wisteria would not be another such casualty. And the warehouse harbored the solution to the murder case.

  Sano walked toward impending doom.

  The guards stationed outside Sano's mansion opened the gate for Kikuko and her maid Rumi.

  Kikuko skipped gaily across the courtyard toward the big house. She was happy because she liked this place. The little boy and his mother lived here. The boy was so much fun, like a baby doll who could walk and talk. And his mother was so pretty. Kikuko liked them. She was so glad to come again, she hummed a happy song.

  A lady opened the door and came out on the veranda. It was the little boy's nursemaid. Kikuko didn't like her much. There was something mean about her face, even when she smiled, and she wasn't smiling now. She looked upset and sad. Mama was often sad, and that made Kikuko sad, too. But after today, they would be happy all the time. Mama had promised.

  The nursemaid brought Kikuko and Rumi into the big house, and they took off their shoes and outdoor clothes. She said to Rumi, "You can wait in the parlor."

  Then she took Kikuko by the hand and led her through the house. Kikuko went willingly, but she was puzzled because the house was so quiet and empty today. Where had everybody gone? Kikuko didn't ask, because the nursemaid frightened her a little, even though Mama had said she was their friend. Kikuko was glad when they went into the boy's room.

  He was sitting all alone, playing with his toy animals. Kikuko was disappointed that his pretty mother wasn't there, but happy to see him.

  "Hello, hello," she cried, bouncing up and down and waving.

  The little boy smiled. "Kiku," he said.

  They laughed together, and the nursemaid stood watching them for a moment. Then she went away. Kikuko remembered the game that Mama had told her to play, and she was happy she'd remembered. She wouldn't want to disappoint Mama and make her sad. She began to run around the room, flapping the long sleeves of her pink kimono.

  "I'm a butterfly," she said to the little boy. "Catch me!"

  He chased her, giggling with excitement. Kikuko swooped out of his way. Then she ran to the door that led outside. She pushed open the door and ran onto the veranda.

  "Catch me!" she called.

  The boy toddled after her. She hopped down the steps, and he crawled down them. The garden was a wonderful place to play, even though the day was cold and cloudy. Kikuko fluttered around trees, bushes, and rocks. The boy ran after her, yelping. She liked that there were no adults to tell them to be quiet. That made the game more fun.

  A glance around the garden showed Kikuko the pond, an irregular oval of water amid leafless cherry trees. She dashed to the pond and stood at the edge. The water was murky, and dead brown lily plants floated on top. Kikuko wrinkled her nose in disgust. But she had to obey Mama.

  The little boy ran toward Kikuko, arms spread, delighted because he thought he was going to catch her. Kikuko hesitated, then waded into the water. Oh, it was cold! She shivered as the first step chilled her up to her ankles. The next step plunged her knee-deep.

  Turning to the little boy, Kikuko called, "Follow me!"

  As Sano crossed the threshold of the warehouse, two gangsters seized his arms, yanking him into a vast, dim space that smelled of hay, manure, and smoke. Sano glimpsed crates, bundles, and ceramic urns stacked against three walls; along the other, horses occupied stalls. His captors propelled him across the stone floor, toward a plank staircase that led to an open loft built along the upper story. Lightning stood at the top of the stairs. Wisteria huddled near him. Six more gangsters crouched around the loft. They all watched Sano climb the stairs. Burning metal lanterns hung on the walls of the loft, casting strange shadows. Heat shimmered the air above charcoal braziers. Smoke drifted upward.

  When Sano mounted the top step, his escorts gave him a hard shove. He stumbled onto the loft on hands and knees. He gazed up in indignation at Lightning, who towered over him.

  "Behold, the proud Tokugawa soldier," Lightning said with a cruel grin. His eyes flashed in the lantern light. Rocking on his feet, clenching and unclenching his hands, he appeared consumed by nervous energy.

  Sano cautiously began to rise, but Lightning kicked his chin, knocking him down. "How brave are you without your weapons and your troops and your shogun to protect you?" Lightning jeered, then ordered, "Show me some respect!"

  Goaded into outrage, Sano swallowed his urge to retaliate against this violent, impulsive man and make a bad situation worse. He knelt, bowed, and said, "I'm at your service."

  Lightning smirked, apparently placated, though wariness glinted in his eyes. Sano turned to Wisteria. Her face was bruised, her naked scalp pitiful, her beauty turned haggard.

  "Are you all right?" Sano asked.

  Wisteria nodded, eyeing him with a strange expression of hope and dismay. While gangsters guarded Sano, Lightning prowled around the loft. "I have to get out of here," he said through gritted teeth. "When will your man bring the money?"

  "As soon as he can," Sano said, disturbed by Lightning's impatience and wondering what were his chances of effecting a peaceful surrender, if the gangster was already so jittery.

  "I'm sorry things turned out like this," Wisteria murmured. Creeping close to Sano, she whispered urgently, "Please don't let him take me."

  "He won't," Sano promised with feigned confidence.

  Lightning stalked toward them. "What are you doing?" he demanded of Wisteria. "Trying to seduce him into rescuing you?" He raised a hand to strike her.

  Wisteria shrank against Sano. His arm circled her protectively. "Nobody's trying anything," he said to Lightning. "Just calm down."

  But the gangster turned livid with fury, shouting, "Don't touch her! You had her once, but she's mine now. Take your filthy hands off her, or I'll cut them off!"

  His rabid jealousy appalled Sano, as did the fact that Lightning knew about his past affair with Wisteria. He hastily moved away from her, aware that the odds of negotiating a surrender were even poorer than he'd thought because Lightning viewed him as a rival.

  Anxious to gain control of the situation, he said, "We're all going to be here together for a while, so why don't you just sit down, and we'll talk-"

  "Shut up! Don't tell me what to do!"

  Now Lightning drew his sword. Sano rose and automatically reached for his own weapon, but his hand clutched empty air. Panic jolted him.

  Wisteria gasped in fright. Exclamations of protest came from the other gangsters.

  "Stay out of this," Lightning ordered them, and advanced on Sano.

  Backing away, Sano tried to reason with Lightning: "Hurt me, and you won't get your money."

  But Lightning kept coming until Sano was trapped in a corner, his back pressed against the wall and the tip of Lightning's blade at his throat. Lightning jittered to a standstill; his breathing, and the twitching of his muscles, sped up beyond normal human velocity. Sano saw reckless temper in the gangster's wildly flickering gaze, and blood lust in his snarling mouth.

  "Let's see whether you die like a samurai or the coward I think you are!" Lightning said.

  "Kill me if you will," Sano said, gulping down terror born of the knowledge that Lightning was capable of murdering him. "But you'll never get away with it. My men will hunt you down to avenge my death."

  A long beat passed. The only sounds Sano heard were his own thudding heart and his tormentor's breaths. Suspense paralyzed everyone except Lightning. Then the gangster threw back his head and laughed.

  "Scared you, didn't I?" He sheathed his sword and stepped away from Sano. "I'm too smart to kill a hostage that I still need. After I get the money, I'm taking you with me to ensure me a saf
e trip out of Edo. But as soon as I'm far away, and you've served your purpose-then I'll kill you."

  Sano's transient relief turned to dread of his death in some remote place. But maybe Lightning couldn't wait till they got that far; maybe Sano was destined to die today. He thought of Reiko and Masahiro, and his determination to prevail braced his spirit. He would live to see his family again. He would deliver Lord Mitsuyoshi's killer to justice and prove his own innocence.

  If he could first prevent Lightning from exploding and killing him and Wisteria and everyone else nearby.

  Lady Yanagisawa stood on the veranda, her hands resting on the railing and face lifted in the wind, scanning the sky above her home. She waited with fevered impatience for tidings that the blood sacrifice had realigned the cosmic forces.

  She knew exactly how it would be. The wind would turn to glad song. The tragedy of Masahiro's death would settle upon Reiko in a dense black shroud of grief, while bliss elevated Lady Yanagisawa. Her husband would adore her. Kikuko would be freed from the curse of imbecility. The gray heavens would part, the sun shine, green leaves unfurl, and the air turn balmy as in springtime on the morn of Lady Yanagisawa's new life.

  Yet as moments passed and the cold, dreary afternoon remained unchanged, misgivings infected her anticipation. She remembered the hospitality Reiko had shown her. She thought of plump, sweet Masahiro. As she imagined water closing over him and his terror as it filled his lungs, a spasm convulsed her stomach. Memories of motherhood rushed upon her. She recalled holding the infant Kikuko, admiring her tiny hands and feet; she heard her daughter's piping voice, smelled her soft, fragrant skin, savored the adoration in her eyes. If Kikuko should die, Lady Yanagisawa would die of a grief too immense to endure.

  Could she inflict such a grief on a woman who'd been kind to her?

  Was her scheme a path to joy, or an evil that would condemn her to be reborn into endless cycles of woe?

  She glimpsed the infinite divide between what she'd done and what she wanted to happen. There was no logical reason that her actions should effect miracles, she suddenly realized. A battle between belief and indecision churned her blood. The winds inside and outside her gusted harder; swaying off balance, Lady Yanagisawa clutched the railing. Her vision of the future wavered; the sky dimmed as twilight approached. Instead of ethereal song, she heard male voices. She saw, across the garden, a group of men walking along a covered corridor between buildings. Her husband was in the lead, his officials trailing. Lady Yanagisawa's heart leapt. Perhaps the deed was done. Perhaps now her husband would come to her.

  The chamberlain turned his head in her direction. Poised on the brink of glee, Lady Yanagisawa waited. His gaze registered her presence. then flitted away.

  Disappointment crushed Lady Yanagisawa. The magnitude of her husband's indifference toward her shriveled her spirit. The winds suddenly ceased. A vacuum enveloped her, and her perception altered with nightmarish effect.

  She saw herself as a tiny, trivial person isolated in a tiny world apart from the big, important one that her husband ruled. As she watched him enter a building and disappear from view, she thought of herself manipulating events like a child playing with toys. Could sanything she did bend her husband, or fate, to her wishes?

  Reality encroached upon desire in the terrible stillness of clear thought. What if her wishes had deluded her? What would come of her scheme?

  She would have destroyed an innocent child and made her daughter an accomplice in murder.

  Even if Reiko believed that Masahiro's death was an accident, she would never forgive Kikuko, or Lady Yanagisawa.

  Lady Yanagisawa's life would go on much the same as always, but without friendship to comfort her. She would be more alone than ever.

  Horror like a flock of black, predatory birds assailed Lady Yanagisawa. A moan of anguish rose from the depths of her spirit. Her doubts about the wisdom of her actions swelled, yet so did the force of her desires. Should she risk the chance that she'd done wrong, for her dream of fulfillment? Or must she stop the events she'd set in motion?

  Was it already too late to change her mind?

  34

  The atmosphere in the warehouse was noxious with foreboding. Sano had heard temple bells toll the passage of two hours since Lightning had taken him hostage. Now he knelt in the loft, near Wisteria, who sat bowed under the weight of fear, eyes downcast. Lightning paced around and around the loft, peering out the windows every few moments, muttering angrily. The eight gangsters crouched apart from each other, their faces stony. Whenever Sano had tried to speak, Lightning had ordered him to be quiet. But Sano believed that the only hope of his survival, and Wisteria's, lay in developing a rapport with Lightning.

  Soon the gangster's endless prowling brought him toward Sano. Urgency compelled Sano to take a risk. "Where will we go when we leave here?" he said.

  Ire flashed in Lightning's mobile gaze, but he paused near Sano and said, "I don't know."

  "Do we have supplies for a journey?" Sano said.

  "Quit pestering me with chatter."

  "I'm sorry," Sano said, "but we must talk." Lightning gripped the hilt of his sword; Wisteria watched them with dread. Sano hurried on: "Holding me hostage won't guarantee your freedom. The police know you killed Lord Mitsuyoshi. The commissioner is my enemy. He'd gladly attack us and let me die to catch you. That puts us on the same side."

  Lightning snorted in contempt, rejecting Sano's suggestion that they were comrades. Sano eyed the gangsters, wondering if they were more worried about saving their own skins than loyal to Lightning. "We should work together," Sano said to Lightning, but he glanced at the other men and pitched his voice so they would hear. "You help me, and I'll help you."

  The gangsters resisted eye contact, their expressions inscrutable. Sano couldn't tell whether they'd caught his meaning that if they helped him capture Lightning, he would spare them punishment for their leader's crimes.

  "No place will be safe for us. We'll be pursued wherever we go," Sano said, hoping to impress upon the gangsters that if they stayed with Lightning, their futures were bleak. "All of us will die-unless we're smart enough to take the opportunity to escape when we can."

  "If you think you can scare me into turning myself in, forget it," Lightning retorted in annoyance. "I'd rather die in battle than surrender." The gangsters ignored the hint to desert. Sano's hopes plunged. Lightning said to his men, "I want a drink. Go get me some sake."

  Three men descended the stairs, and Sano heard them rummaging through the warehouse's goods. Only one man returned, bearing a sake jar. Lightning didn't seem to notice; he just took the jar and drank. But Sano was jubilant to think that the other two men had fled and his plan was working.

  "Surrender is your best bet," he told Lightning.

  "Are you crazy?" The gangster wiped his mouth on his sleeve and stared at Sano. "The shogun will execute me for stabbing his precious heir."

  Out the corner of his eye, Sano saw two more men amble downstairs. Lightning opened a window, looked outside, and said, "I wish your man would hurry up and bring the money!"

  "We may be on the run for months," Sano said. "How will you be able to stand hiding much longer? Captivity can be worse than death."

  "I'm not giving up." Lightning hurled away the empty jar; it shattered on the warehouse floor below. Wisteria flinched. "I'll keep my head on my neck as long as possible, and if the army finds me, I'll kill as many of them as I can before I die."

  He turned to his four remaining comrades. "Go make sure nobody's trying to sneak in."

  The men went, leaving Sano, Lightning, and Wisteria alone. Sano waited in suspense. The men didn't return. Lightning began to pace again. While he was at the other end of the loft with his back turned, Sano caught Wisteria's eye and signaled her to run down the stairs, before Lightning came near them again or guessed what was happening. But Wisteria frowned at him in bafflement: She didn't realize the gangsters had gone. Suddenly, from the lower story, came the clatte
r of horses' hooves. Dismay struck Sano as he comprehended that the gangsters had waited to escape until they were all downstairs, then fled together, noisily, on their mounts.

  Lightning froze. "Hey, what's going on?" He rushed to the edge of the loft and gawked at the empty warehouse. Sano heard the horses galloping away. "Those cowards have deserted me!"

  He turned, and Sano watched spasms of panic ripple his features. "My chances of surviving are almost none because I'm all alone!" he shouted, and stalked over to Wisteria. "This is all your fault!"

  Like many bullies, he derived his strength from his confederates, and shifted responsibility for his troubles, Sano observed. Wisteria stood and faced Lightning. "It isn't my fault," she said, boldly defiant now that he was weakened. "If you hadn't killed Lord Mitsuyoshi, we would be safe now."