The Ronin’s Mistress si-15

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “How do you know?”

  “Your assistant told me that you blamed Kira for Tsunamori’s suicide.”

  Kajikawa shook his head, and tears flew from his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it.” He clasped the shogun as tightly as a drowning man would his rescuer.

  “Expose Kira for what he was, a monster who fed on the pain he caused other people,” Sano urged. “It’s the only way for you to get justice for your son.”

  “Justice was done when Oishi killed Kira!”

  “Not quite,” Sano said. “The forty-seven ronin’s score is settled, but yours won’t be until your story is out in the open.”

  The battle in Kajikawa’s eyes waged, shame versus his need for retaliation. Then Kajikawa said, “You’re right.” His voice broke. “I need the world to know.”

  * * *

  The underside of the palace was a cold, dark maze that smelled of earth. Guided by diamond-shaped patterns of light from the openings in the lattice, Reiko crawled past stone piers that supported the building, over rough ground that scraped her knees, gouged her hands, and snagged her robes. Cobwebs dangling from the floor joists brushed her face. Reiko had never been in the shogun’s private chambers, but she knew they were at the center of the palace. She inched along, trying not to make a sound. She ducked to avoid bumping her head on braziers suspended under the floor. Stinking basins set on the ground marked the locations of privies. No sound came from the rooms above her until she saw a square patch of light on the ground ahead. The light came from an opening in the floor, as did voices. Reiko looked up the hole, through the room above her, to a ceiling crisscrossed with carved beams. The hole was a space where a brazier had been removed. Reiko felt a draft as the room’s heated atmosphere sucked cold air up through the hole. A man stammered and ranted. Was it Kajikawa?

  Were Sano and Masahiro there?

  The urge to raise her head through the hole and peek was almost irresistible. But if Kajikawa should see her, there was no telling what would happen. Reiko crept toward the side of the building. She pushed and pulled the lattice until it loosened. Crawling from beneath the palace, she emerged in a courtyard garden that resembled a frozen sea studded with boulders like black icebergs. She climbed the steps to a veranda, moved sideways between curtains of icicles, and slipped through the door.

  Inside, she tiptoed along dim corridors. The voice led her around a corner. Here the passage was suffused with lantern light that shone through a paper-and-lattice wall. Reiko saw indistinct shadows on the other side. The voice that she took to be Kajikawa’s broke into sobs. Desperate to know what had become of her husband and son, Reiko pulled her dagger out of its sheath under her sleeve and poked it through the paper pane. She winced at the faint noise of the blade slicing the stiff, brittle rice paper. Ages seemed to pass before she’d cut the top and sides of a square no wider than her eye. She peeled down the flap and peeked through the hole.

  On the other side was a room, a vacant platform to her right. Yoritomo stood by the opposite wall. His shoulders were slumped; his beautiful face wore a look of misery. Reiko’s eye darted left, toward the voice that spoke words too low for her to understand. It came from a short, dumpy samurai who stood with his back toward her. He must be Kajikawa. With his left arm he held someone pressed against him. His body partially hid the other man. But she could see the cylindrical black cap that the other man wore. It was the shogun. Kajikawa’s right elbow was cocked upward; he held a sword against the shogun’s throat.

  Alarm flashed through Reiko. What had become of Sano and Masahiro?

  Her gaze dropped to the floor. Human bodies lay, in contorted positions, strewn across it. Blood gleamed in a shocking red puddle around one body. Reiko’s heart gave a sickening thump. Were all those men dead? Had Kajikawa murdered everyone?

  She heard whimpering and thought it came from her, but it was the shogun’s. She peered more closely at the bodies and noticed that their feet and hands were bound with cloth strips. Their eyes blinked. Their faces twisted in expressions of woe. Everyone was alive but the gray-haired old man lying in the blood.

  It was Ihara. Not Sano or Masahiro.

  Relief cheered Reiko. She scrutinized the other men. Some had the cropped hair and cotton garb of servants. Some were youths-the shogun’s boys. Reiko couldn’t find Sano, but she recognized the brown-and-orange-striped kimono that Masahiro had been wearing this morning.

  Masahiro lay on his side, turned away from Reiko, about fifteen paces distant. His bound wrists and ankles were drawn so tightly together that his spine arched. He trembled with pain. Horrified by the sight of her child suffering, Reiko wanted to tear through the wall and rescue him, but if she did, Kajikawa might panic and kill the shogun. Reiko thought of the forty-seven ronin. They’d had to choose between their duty to the shogun and their loyalty to Lord Asano, the person who mattered more to them. Reiko could stand idle for the shogun’s sake, or she could help her son.

  She carefully cut the hole bigger, enough to speak through and look through at the same time. “Masahiro,” she whispered.

  He didn’t react. He couldn’t hear her. Other people lay between them. One, a boy who was facing Reiko, met her gaze. Reiko shushed him, then whispered Masahiro’s name louder. He jerked as he recognized her voice.

  “Don’t look at me,” Reiko whispered urgently.

  Masahiro froze. Kajikawa rambled on. Reiko whispered, “Move this way. Slowly. Don’t make a sound.”

  Masahiro wriggled backward. The others shifted out of his way. Reiko held her breath, afraid Kajikawa would notice, but he didn’t turn. Yoritomo seemed oblivious. When Kajikawa paused, a voice uttered quiet prompts. It was Sano’s voice. Kajikawa was talking to Sano. Reiko almost fainted with gladness that her husband was there, alive. He must have convinced Kajikawa to talk, in order to buy himself time to save the shogun.

  Masahiro moved beneath her vantage point. Reiko heard his muffled, pained grunts and the soft scrape of his body against the straw matting. At last he stopped, panting, at the wall. She knelt and cut another hole that framed Masahiro’s hands and feet.

  “Don’t move.” She sliced the red and orange sash that tethered Masahiro’s wrists to his ankles. His spine relaxed; he sighed. When she cut the bonds, there was no time to be careful. Her blade made bloody nicks in his skin. Her heart broke while he endured the pain. At last he was free, but he remained in the same, contorted position, as if still tied up.

  “Wait until I tell you to move,” Reiko whispered. She thrust the dagger into Masahiro’s hands. “Then do exactly as I say.” She hoped she would know what to tell him, and when.

  37

  1700 Autumn

  On a glorious, sunny day, Kajikawa and his son Tsunamori walked up the white gravel path to the palace. Kajikawa looked at Tsunamori with pride. Tsunamori was a fine boy, even though he was small for his twelve years. He was also an only son, a precious thing. In him resided all Kajikawa’s hopes for the future.

  Kajikawa stopped, turned Tsunamori to face him, and said, “This is a very special day.”

  “Yes, Father.” Tsunamori’s eyes were bright with anticipation. He could hardly wait to start his first job in Edo Castle.

  “You’ll be working for a very important man.” Kajikawa glanced toward the palace and saw Kira Yoshinaka strolling toward them. “Here he comes now.”

  Dressed in his black court robes, Kira was a tall, dark silhouette cut out of the bright day. He joined Kajikawa and Tsunamori and looked down at them. His face was in the shadow that he cast over Tsunamori.

  Father and son bowed. Kajikawa said, “Greetings, Honorable Master of Ceremonies. This is my son. A thousand thanks for allowing him to be your page.”

  “I’m sure he’ll make my favor worthwhile.” The smile Kira gave Tsunamori was tinged with something ugly. “Are you ready to learn your duties?”

  Shy and nervous, eyes cast politely downward, Tsunamori said, “Yes, master.”

  “Work hard,” Ka
jikawa told his son. “Do everything Kira-san says. The honor of our family depends on you.” As he watched Tsunamori follow Kira into the palace, Kajikawa had no idea that he’d just given his son over to a monster.

  He ignored the signs at first. Every day, after work, Tsunamori was unusually quiet. When Kajikawa asked him what he’d been doing, he made brief, vague replies. Kajikawa thought it was because he was growing up and wanted privacy. Then one night Tsunamori came home with his face bruised, his clothes torn.

  “What happened?” Kajikawa said, alarmed.

  Tsunamori mumbled something about a fight. Kajikawa knew that the boys at the castle always picked on newcomers. Tsunamori would learn to defend himself, like everybody else, and then he would be fine. Or so Kajikawa thought, until the day he visited Kira and asked for a report on Tsunamori’s progress.

  “He’s doing an excellent job,” Kira said. “See for yourself, if you like. He’s at the Momijiyama, helping to prepare it for a ceremony.”

  Kajikawa went to the Tokugawa ancestral worship shrine inside the castle. He walked under the torii gate, along the flagstone path flanked by temple dogs, through a forest where maple trees sported brilliant red leaves amid the evergreens. Kajikawa was puzzled because the shrine was so quiet, apparently deserted. Then he heard grunts, whimpers, and rustling noises from the forest. Curious, he followed them, through the trees to a clearing.

  There he saw three figures joined together. In the center was Tsunamori, naked, on his hands and knees. A castle guard knelt behind Tsunamori. His kimono was hiked up around his waist, his loincloth hanging. He grunted as he rammed himself against Tsunamori’s buttocks. Another guard, similarly undressed, held Tsunamori’s face against his crotch. Tsunamori whimpered as the men took their pleasure.

  Kajikawa was so sick with horror that he almost vomited. Sex between men was rampant in Edo Castle; he’d happened onto similar scenes before. He knew that the shogun’s older retainers often used the younger ones. It was the custom. It had happened to Kajikawa when he was young, and he’d almost forgotten it. But this was his son!

  “Stop!” Kajikawa rushed into the clearing. He shoved the guards. “Leave him alone!”

  They slunk away, straightening their clothes. Kajikawa knelt beside Tsunamori, who lay sobbing on the ground. “Has this been happening since you started working in the castle?” Kajikawa asked.

  Tsunamori nodded. He picked up his clothes and slowly dressed.

  “Well, it’s the last time,” Kajikawa said. “I’ll have those guards thrown out of the regime. They’ll never touch you again.”

  “No!” Tsunamori cried with a vehemence that startled Kajikawa. “You mustn’t!”

  “Why not?”

  “Kira told them they could have me. He told me that if I didn’t let them do whatever they wanted, I would lose my post.”

  Kajikawa was thunderstruck. He couldn’t believe Kira would do such a thing! But he could see that Tsunamori was telling the truth. “Go home,” he said grimly. “I’ll handle Kira.”

  By the time he found Kira, in the Corridor of Pines, he was shaking with rage. “You forced my son to service those animals! You’re nothing but a dirty pimp!”

  Kira smiled, the same ugly smile he’d given Tsunamori at that first meeting. “Oh, you saw the little scene at the shrine. Good.”

  Fresh shock left Kajikawa breathless. “You meant for me to see? That’s why you sent me there!”

  “Of course. What good is a performance without an audience?”

  The gall, the heartlessness, the sheer perversion of the man! “You won’t get away with this! I’ll-I’ll-”

  “Report me to the shogun?” Kira snickered. “His Excellency isn’t likely to frown on pursuits that he himself enjoys.”

  Kajikawa was disheartened; he knew it was true. “I’ll tell everybody what you are!”

  The smile dropped off Kira’s face. “If you utter one complaint or accusation, I’ll have you and your son both thrown out of the regime.” He raised a finger at Kajikawa, a warning that it wielded more power than Kajikawa had in the world. Then Kira turned and glided away.

  Kajikawa spent a sleepless night. His fear of Kira argued with his need to protect his son and his thirst for revenge. He’d never been a brave man, and fear won out. It would be best, for him and Tsunamori both, if he did nothing rather than risk the disgrace and hardship of their becoming ronin.

  “You’ll just have to put up with it until the guards get tired of you or Kira finds someone else to pick on,” Kajikawa told Tsunamori the next day.

  “Yes, Father,” Tsunamori said meekly.

  As months passed, Kajikawa couldn’t meet Tsunamori’s eyes and think of what his son suffered while he looked the other way. He couldn’t bear to admit he’d let Tsunamori down.

  One winter night, Tsunamori didn’t come home. The next morning, Kajikawa ran all over the castle, searching for him. He found Tsunamori at the shrine, dangling from a noose tied to a branch of a tree in the clearing where the guards had raped him. Kajikawa had come too late. Tsunamori was dead.

  In his anguish, Kajikawa blamed Kira. Kira had brought about the degradation that had caused Tsunamori to take his own life. Kira should be punished. But Kajikawa was still afraid of Kira. Instead of registering a vendetta and killing his enemy, Kajikawa sought another way to settle the score. He began spying on Kira. He secretly watched and listened to Kira torment Lord Asano. He witnessed sharp exchanges between Kira and Oishi. Eventually, he followed Kira to the squalid little inn by the river.

  He hid in a bamboo grove and watched Kira peek through a hole in the window of a room. After a short while, Kira left, smiling his ugly smile. Then Kajikawa saw Oishi exit the room next to the one Kira had spied on. Oishi’s expression was grim enough to turn wine into vinegar. A few moments afterward, a woman ran weeping from the room on the other side. Interested to see what had upset her and Oishi so much, Kajikawa tiptoed to the window and looked through Kira’s peephole.

  In the room, Lord Asano slumped naked on the bed. A woman stood with her back to him, dressing. Her head was bowed as if in shame. Lord Asano said, “Your husband is my loyal chief retainer and best friend. I wish I could take back what I did.”

  “I wish I could take it back, too,” the woman said. “Your wife is my best friend.”

  They both sounded remorseful about their illicit love affair. Kajikawa deduced the women’s identities: This one was Oishi’s wife. The weeping woman from the next room must be Lord Asano’s.

  “I’m sorry,” Lord Asano said.

  “It’s not your fault,” Oishi’s wife said bitterly. “It’s Kira’s.”

  Kajikawa realized that he and his son weren’t the only people that Kira had manipulated into a sordid scene for his own pleasure. Kira had forced Lord Asano to bed Oishi’s wife, and arranged for Oishi and Lady Asano to see it. Kajikawa was disgusted by the enormity of Kira’s perversion. He was elated when Lord Asano attacked Kira, and disappointed because Kira didn’t die.

  After months of ruminating on past events, he realized that Lord Asano had presented him with an opportunity for revenge. He concocted a plan and worked up the nerve to set it in motion.

  Kajikawa went looking for Oishi and discovered that the man had gone to Miyako. He traveled there, found the house where Oishi was living, and waited outside. When Oishi emerged, Kajikawa said, “Oishi-san, what a surprise. How about a drink?”

  When they were seated in the teahouse and had drunk a few cups, Kajikawa described what he’d seen at the inn. He told Oishi that Kira had organized the tryst between Oishi’s wife and Lord Asano.

  Oishi pounded on the table and cursed. “Kira is a dead man!”

  Kajikawa felt a searing satisfaction in his heart. What he couldn’t do, Oishi would. He felt guilty as he egged Oishi into plotting an illegal vendetta, but he told Oishi, and himself, that he could protect Oishi from the consequences. They would both get their revenge, and neither would be punished.

 
* * *

  Hirataraced through the torii gate that led to the Momijiyama. Temple dogs glared at him through a coating of ice. A forest of crystallized trees shivered around him as he skidded along the slippery flagstone path. He perceived a faint trace of Kajikawa’s aura and stopped. He lifted his head. The aura emanated from the forest, which was silent except for the tinkle of falling ice crystals. Hirata followed the aura, crunching on brittle snow. He arrived at a clearing where rays of pale daylight shone through the ice-draped canopy of tree branches.

  The clearing was empty. The aura came from a strip of white paper that lay atop frozen leaves. Hirata picked up the paper. Written on it in shaky calligraphy were the words, Tsunamori. Your father is sorry.

  Hirata laid down the paper and left the forest. On the path he met a Shinto priest, who said, “You’re too late. He left almost an hour ago.”

  Hirata remembered where else Kajikawa had been sighted. He ran for the palace.

  * * *

  In the Shogun’s chamber, Sano realized that he had finally uncovered the truth behind the forty-seven ronin’s vendetta. The story of the vendetta was like a tapestry, thickly woven with details. Sano had picked apart the many threads-the conflicting versions of events-before discovering that the forty-seven ronin hadn’t been the only men bent on destroying Kira.

  There was a forty-eighth avenger.

  But even while Kajikawa held his blade to the shogun’s throat, he seemed the unlikeliest avenger in the world.

  “I thought Oishi would kill Kira and I could feel that I’d paid Kira back for my son’s death,” Kajikawa lamented, his tiny features dripping tears. “I can’t believe how wrong everything went. All I wanted was justice for my son!”

  “And you got it,” Sano said, thinking fast, searching for the words to turn the situation around. “Even though I don’t approve of the way you went about it, I think you did right by your son.” One’s son deserved vengeance even more than one’s lord did. If Sano had discovered that Kira had made a prostitute of Masahiro, he would have killed Kira on the spot instead of bringing in another injured party to do it. Still, Kajikawa had done the best he could. “Kira was a monster.”