The Ronin’s Mistress si-15

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “There is.” Sano relayed Lady Asano’s story, which Reiko had told him, of Kira’s campaign to destroy her husband.

  “Deplorable,” said Minister Motoori from Magistrate Ueda’s side. He squinted, half blind but astute, his crippled limbs drawn up like gnarled twigs under his black robes. “Kira preyed on a weak, unstable man. He drove Lord Asano to a mental breakdown.”

  “I say that constitutes a legitimate quarrel,” Superintendent Ogiwara boomed.

  “One in which Kira was the aggressor,” Minister Motoori clarified. “He goaded Lord Asano into attacking him. If Lord Asano hadn’t kept his mouth shut, he would have been excused and Kira would have been the one sentenced to death, for provoking violence in Edo Castle. The forty-seven ronin wouldn’t have needed to avenge Lord Asano, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “The only information you’ve brought us about the quarrel comes from Lord Asano, secondhand,” Inspector General Nakae said to Sano. “Consider this: What did the first witness hear? Only a snippet of conversation between Kira and Lord Asano. And who is the second witness? She’s Lord Asano’s wife. She’s probably looking for someone to blame for his death and her hard life. She’s throwing mud on Kira, now that he’s not around to contradict her story.”

  “Even if her story is true, the quarrel sounds like a personal feud to me,” said Colonel Hitomi, the inspector general’s ally. The old soldier sat with his cane across his knees. “What Lady Asano described isn’t a crime, and I wouldn’t call it corruption.”

  “I agree,” Lord Nabeshima said. “Corruption involves crimes against the government.”

  “I’ve found evidence that Kira’s campaign against Lord Asano was part of a crime against the government.” Sano told the story Hirata had heard from Toda the spy, of the goods confiscated from Ako Castle, the missing gold, and Kira’s discharged debt.

  The judges were shocked wordless. Yanagisawa met Sano’s gaze. He slowly brought his hands together, then moved them apart, together and apart, in silent, mocking applause.

  Magistrate Ueda recovered his voice. “So it’s possible that Kira goaded Lord Asano into drawing a sword in Edo Castle, in order to have his estate confiscated and steal his gold.”

  “That’s what I would call corruption,” General Hitomi said reluctantly. “The gold rightfully belonged to the government. Kira cheated the shogun.”

  Inspector General Nakae narrowed his eyes at his ally who’d switched sides on him. “You’re being premature. Has Sano-san offered any proof for his theory? No. It sounds to me as if he’s fabricated the whole thing out of a few unconnected circumstances.”

  “These could be the extenuating circumstances we’ve been looking for.” Superintendent Ogiwara’s large, protuberant eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “They could justify the shogun voiding his original decision to exempt Kira from punishment for the incident between him and Lord Asano.”

  Minister Motoori said, “This is the one thing that would allow the shogun to change his mind without losing face: Kira committed a crime against him. Kira deserved to be punished.”

  “You’re building a case out of air and nonsense!” Inspector General Nakae protested. “The theory is incredibly far-fetched!”

  “Far-fetched or not, this is the best explanation for Kira’s actions that I’ve heard,” Magistrate Ueda said.

  Sano watched Chamberlain Yanagisawa, who listened with a calculating look in his eyes. The judges who hadn’t spoken yesterday seemed even more inhibited today, by Yanagisawa’s presence.

  “What do you think?” Sano asked Yanagisawa.

  The chamberlain smiled at Sano’s attempt to learn where he stood on the issue. “I think the judges should vote.”

  His opinion had the force of an order from the shogun. Magistrate Ueda looked vexed and said, “We’ll take a blind vote.” He ordered Inspector General Nakae to tear a sheet of paper into strips, give one to each judge, and pass around his ink brush. Yanagisawa frowned in annoyance because the magistrate had circumvented his ploy to find out the judges’ positions. “Write ‘condemn’ or ‘pardon,’” Magistrate Ueda said. “Then pass your votes to me.”

  Fourteen judges took turns writing while they screened their papers with their hands. They folded the papers into tight little packets. Magistrate Ueda collected the fourteen votes, unfolded them, and divided them face up into two piles. “Six in favor of condemning the forty-seven ronin this time. Eight in favor of pardoning.”

  Sano felt his spirits rise; yet he wasn’t sure he believed in the evidence he’d presented that had swayed the court. Satisfaction showed on Minister Motoori’s and Superintendent Ogiwara’s faces. Lord Nabeshima looked appalled. Yanagisawa scrutinized the other judges, who kept their expressions carefully blank.

  Inspector General Nakae burst out, “All of you who changed your vote to pardoning the forty-seven ronin, you’re damned fools!”

  “Rule number five,” Magistrate Ueda said. “No rude language in the courtroom.”

  “The hell with your rules!” Nakae retorted.

  “Rule number six,” Magistrate Ueda said calmly. “Anyone who breaks the rules will-”

  “Be thrown off the court?” Inspector General Nakae said, incredulous.

  Lord Nabeshima came to the aid of his comrade. “You’d like to get rid of us, wouldn’t you? But you can’t. The shogun put us on the court. We stay unless he says go.”

  “-will be escorted to a separate chamber, and will communicate with the other judges via written notes,” Magistrate Ueda finished.

  Inspector General Nakae rose. An angry blush suffused his face; he looked more like an overripe, moldy pumpkin than ever. “Have you forgotten who you’re talking to?”

  Lord Nabeshima stood, too. As he and Nakae loomed over Magistrate Ueda, he said, “You’re exceeding your authority.”

  Sano felt the threat behind their words and the hot flare of their tempers. Colonel Hitomi reared up on his knees; Superintendent Ogiwara hopped into a defensive crouch, like a Kabuki actor playing a samurai ready for combat. The other judges recoiled in consternation. Even Yanagisawa looked unsettled. Was the supreme court about to self-destruct in a brawl?

  Magistrate Ueda remained seated and unruffled. “Guards!” he called.

  Four soldiers appeared, so quickly that Sano figured they’d been stationed nearby, trying to eavesdrop on the court.

  “Take them to the east reception room,” Magistrate Ueda said.

  Inspector General Nakae and Lord Nabeshima spluttered in indignation, but they went. A hostile silence followed their departure. Sano could tell that Magistrate Ueda’s high-handed action had offended other judges besides them. His heart sank because the quarrel boded as ill for him as for the court’s proceedings.

  “The court will take a recess,” Magistrate Ueda said. “We’ll reconvene in an hour and try again.”

  As everyone rose and filed out the door, Yanagisawa bumped shoulders with Sano. “It looks as if the judges won’t be able to reach a verdict at all, let alone one that pleases everyone.” He smiled a smug, vicious smile. “Lady Reiko and the children are sure to miss you when you’re gone.”

  22

  Chiyo asked to be excused from the trip to visit Oishi. Reiko didn’t press her to go. It was better to keep Chiyo and Okaru apart than increase Chiyo’s dislike of Okaru or let it spoil Okaru’s pleasure.

  Reiko felt bad because Okaru had come between her and Chiyo. She had a dilemma on her hands: She owed her loyalty to her friend and relative, but she couldn’t abandon a person in need who was a guest in her house. She must fulfill her promise to help Okaru.

  Goza took Chiyo’s place inside the palanquin. The servant was dour and silent, but Okaru could hardly contain her ebullience as they rode through the city.

  “I can’t wait to see Oishi!” Okaru smoothed her hair, which she’d pinned up and studded with paper flowers. “Do I look all right?”

  “You look lovely,” Reiko said.

&nbs
p; “It’s been so long since Oishi and I were together. I feel as if we’ll be strangers when we meet. Oh, Lady Reiko, what will I do?”

  Reiko hardly felt qualified to give advice. “Just act natural, I suppose.”

  Their procession reached the Hosokawa clan estate, which looked cold and unwelcoming, set amid bare trees, the snow on its roof grayed by soot. Okaru gasped with awe and said, “This is where Oishi is in jail? It looks like a palace!”

  A servant escorted Reiko, Okaru, and Goza into an elegant reception chamber in the mansion. “I’m so nervous,” Okaru said, fidgeting with her clothes. When they heard footsteps in the corridor, she cried, “It’s him!” She leaped to her feet as Oishi entered the chamber.

  He wasn’t what Reiko had expected. Her imagination had built the leader of the forty-seven ronin into a giant with a face like an iron war mask. But Oishi in the flesh was smaller, older, and clearly not in good health. His strength showed only in his eyes. They had the hard, fiery light of steel heated in a swordsmith’s forge. He favored Okaru with a scowl that must have been the last thing Kira had seen before Oishi cut off his head.

  Okaru didn’t notice. She flung herself at Oishi and threw her arms around him. She wept while murmuring endearments.

  His arms shot out, breaking her grasp as if she were a flimsy vine that had twined around him. Okaru stumbled backward.

  “My love?” she said, her smile faltering. “What’s wrong?”

  “What are you doing here?” Oishi demanded.

  The jubilance in Okaru’s eyes dimmed. “I-I wanted to see you.”

  She took a step toward him, but Oishi raised his hand to fend her off and said, “You shouldn’t have come.”

  Okaru gazed at him with hurt disbelief, like a child slapped for no reason. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”

  Reiko couldn’t believe Oishi’s cruelty, either. She heard a low growl from Goza. The servant’s face had taken on the look of a watchdog whose owner is threatened.

  “That should be obvious. I never want to see you again.” Oishi turned to leave.

  With a wail, Okaru lunged after him. She tripped on her skirts, sprawled, and grabbed Oishi’s ankle. “My love, why are you treating me like this?”

  Oishi kicked savagely at her. “Let go!”

  Appalled, Reiko hurried to Okaru and touched her shoulder. “Come away before you get hurt.”

  Goza stalked toward Oishi with her fists clenched. Okaru hung on, pleading, “Don’t you love me anymore?”

  “I never loved you.” Contempt edged Oishi’s voice.

  “But-but-” Okaru pulled herself, hand over hand, up his leg. “You promised we would marry someday.” Her eyes pleaded with him. “Don’t you remember?”

  Oishi laughed, a chortle filled with disgust. “I never meant any of those things.”

  Shock loosened Okaru’s grip on him. She sat back on her heels. “You lied?” she said in a tiny voice.

  “That’s right.” Oishi seemed to relish the pain he was causing. Reiko’s admiration for him turned to revulsion. “I only told you what you wanted to hear.”

  “But why?”

  “I was using you,” Oishi said with brutal honesty. “You were part of my act.”

  “Act?” Okaru shook her head in confusion. “What act?”

  “To make myself seem like a no-good, drunken bum. To make Kira think I’d forgotten about avenging my master. And it worked. I fooled Kira. He’s dead. And I don’t need you anymore.” He averted his gaze from Okaru, as if she were dog excrement.

  “No. I don’t believe it,” Okaru said, even as her eyes widened into dark pools of pain. “You weren’t acting, I would have known. You were in love with me. You still are.”

  “Stop!” Oishi raised his voice over hers. “Face the facts. I wasn’t in love with you. I’m not now. My wife is the only woman I love.”

  His last statement silenced Okaru like a hand closed around her throat. Her mouth opened and closed, emitting strangled gasps before she managed to say, “Your wife? But you divorced her. You said you didn’t care about her. You said I was the one…”

  “I only divorced her to protect her, you silly little fool,” Oishi said. “So she couldn’t be punished for anything I did. If not for that, we would still be married.”

  He spoke with conviction, but his words struck a dissonant chord in Reiko. She tilted her head and frowned.

  “It’s not true,” Okaru said, breathless with desperation. “You don’t know what you’re saying, you’re not yourself. You must be ill. Darling, you need me.” She stood, lifted her hand, and stroked Oishi’s cheek. “Let me make you all better.”

  Oishi swatted at Okaru. He might have intended only to repel her touch, but his hand struck her face hard enough that she shrieked and fell.

  Reiko caught Okaru. Goza assailed Oishi, seized his neck, and began to throttle him. As he tried to pry her hands off him, his eyes bulged. He choked. His complexion turned purple before he drove his knee into Goza’s stomach and broke her hold.

  She retreated but stood ready to charge again, her face murderous, her fingers curled, and her knees flexed like a wrestler’s. Oishi wheezed as he said to Okaru, “Never come near me again.”

  Okaru collapsed, wailing, in Reiko’s arms. As Oishi started to walk out of the room, Reiko realized why his words hadn’t sounded right. She called to him, “You say your love for Okaru was just an act, and you only divorced your wife in order to protect her. But that’s not what my husband says you told him. Why have you changed your story?”

  Oishi left without answering her question.

  * * *

  “I thought he loved me!” Okaru wailed as the palanquin carried her and Reiko and Goza through the city. “How could he be so cruel? How could I be so stupid?”

  Reiko tried to comfort her, but by the time they arrived at Sano’s estate, she was in hysterics. “I can’t breathe!” Okaru wheezed and clutched her throat.

  “Just calm down,” Reiko urged. “You’ll be fine.”

  Okaru fell out of the palanquin, sobbing. Goza picked her up and carried her toward the house. Chiyo and Masahiro appeared at the door and gazed with concern at Okaru flailing and gasping in Goza’s arms.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Masahiro asked.

  Reiko explained, then said, “Fetch the doctor. Be quick.”

  Masahiro ran off. Reiko and Chiyo put Okaru to bed. Okaru writhed under the quilt, mussing her hairdo. Her tears had melted her makeup into a red and gray mess.

  “I’m so miserable, I want to die!” A fit of coughing and choking ensued.

  Reiko pleaded with her to lie still and try to breathe normally. At last Masahiro arrived with an Edo Castle physician, who made Okaru drink a potion made from dates, sprouted wheat, and licorice to relieve her grief, and a tincture of opium to sedate her. After a while her breathing evened, her struggles ceased, and she drowsed. Reiko, Goza, and Chiyo knelt around her bed. Masahiro hovered anxiously in the doorway.

  “Will she be all right?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Reiko said, although she wondered if it was possible to die of a broken heart.

  “We should let her rest.” Chiyo spoke to Reiko, but her gaze was on Masahiro.

  Reiko saw an uneasy expression appear on his face as he slipped away. She remembered Chiyo’s mysterious hints about Okaru. Again she didn’t have time to ask what they meant, because when she and Chiyo left the room they met Sano in the corridor. Chiyo greeted him, then excused herself, leaving Reiko and Sano alone.

  “I saw the doctor coming out of the house,” Sano said. “Is somebody sick?”

  “It’s Okaru.” Reiko described what had happened between Okaru and Oishi.

  Sano immediately grasped the significance of Oishi’s words. “He changed his story.”

  “Yes,” Reiko said. “I asked him why, but he didn’t answer.”

  Sano massaged his head as if it ached from the barrage of conflicting evidence. “Oishi’s new story corroborates h
is son Chikara’s statement that his relationship with Okaru was just a ploy to protect his wife and trick Kira.”

  Reiko’s anger at Oishi resurged. “He may be a hero for avenging Lord Asano, but he was cruel to Okaru, who didn’t deserve it. He’s lost much of my sympathy.”

  “A samurai’s duty to his master takes priority over obligations to everyone else.” Sano clearly didn’t like her criticism. “You know that.”

  Reiko felt the familiar, uncomfortable tension that arose when she and Sano had different opinions about a subject in a case. She started to say that she hoped this case wouldn’t come between them, when a manservant appeared and said, “Honorable Master, you have a visitor. It’s Ohgami Kaoru, from the Council of Elders.”

  “I’d better not keep him waiting,” Sano said as he headed toward the reception room.

  The manservant said to Reiko, “This message came for you today,” and offered her a scroll in a lacquer container.

  Reiko took the scroll and followed Sano. She stood outside the reception room door, which was open wide enough for her to see Sano kneeling opposite a white-haired samurai with an oddly youthful face. She eavesdropped on their conversation.

  * * *

  Elder Ohgami refused Sano’s offer of refreshments. “I can’t stay long.”

  That was a bad sign. Sano braced himself for news he didn’t want to hear.

  “The Council of Elders is concerned that the supreme court is taking too long to announce a verdict,” Ohgami said.

  “The judges only convened for the first time yesterday,” Sano pointed out.

  “The Council is aware of that,” Ohgami said. “But certain members feel that because the case is so politically sensitive, expediency is of utmost importance.”

  Sano deduced that “certain members” meant Kato and Ihara, his and Ohgami’s opponents. “The judges want to be sure they make the right decision.”

  “The judges aren’t the problem.” Ohgami fixed a pointed look on Sano. “Some of us think it’s your investigation that’s holding things up.”

  “I’m working as fast as I can.” Sano thought, Here we go again. His superiors never ceased expecting him to produce instant miracles.