The Way of the Traitor: A Samurai Mystery (2 page)

He drew his sword, but Hirata whispered urgently, oThe thieves are dangerous killers. Please stay here, where you'll be safe. Beneath his hat, his wide, boyish face was tense with concern; his earnest gaze beseeched Sano. oLet us handle this.
A rueful smile touched Sano's lips as he started toward the door. Twenty-one years old, Hirata took very seriously his role as chief retainer and primary protector, opposing Sano's determination to fight battles alone and reserve the worst risks for himself. He didn't know that his master's unspoken fear of loss and guilt outweighed the fear of death. And he didn't understand that Sano needed danger, and confrontation with evil. Bushido "the Way of the Warrior "taught that a samurai's sole purpose was to give his life to his lord's service. Duty, loyalty, and courage were its highest virtues, and together formed the foundation of a samurai's honor. But Sano's personal concept of Bushido encompassed a fourth cornerstone, as important to his honor as the others: the pursuit of truth and justice. The exhilarating quest for knowledge, the satisfaction of seeing a criminal caught and punished, infused his existence with a deeper purpose than serving a gravely flawed regime.
oCome on, let's go, Sano said.
With Hirata beside him, he stole up to the building, quietly slid open the door, and looked into a large room lit by hanging lanterns. Mounted on wall brackets were many sheathed swords, and gleaming steel blades with the hilts removed. Characters etched on the tangs certified that these blades had cut human bodies during tameshigiri, the official method of testing swords. In the back of the room, near sliding doors that opened onto a wet courtyard, stood seven men: the four thieves in dripping cloaks, the hoods thrown back from their coarse faces; two peasants in cotton headbands, loincloths, and short kimonos; and an older man dressed in a formal black surcoat and trousers stamped with the Miochin crest. In his pale, aquiline face, deepset eyes burned.
The thieves unwrapped the bundle on the floor, baring the corpse of a stout man shrouded in white silk funeral garments. Gazing down at it, Miochin said, oA perfect specimen. Many thanks.
According to Tokugawa law, the bodies of executed criminals could be used to test swords, but murderers, priests, tattooed individuals, and eta were taboo. A recent shortage of suitable traitors, thieves, and arsonists had reduced the supply of raw material for sword testers. When the bakufu sold the few available corpses to the highest bidders among the hereditary testing officials, the wealthy Yamada, Chokushi, and Nakagawa families bought up the precious commodity, forcing minor clans such as the Miochin to use straw dummies. However, the cutting of human flesh and bone was the only true test of a blade's quality. Since swords tested otherwise fetched lower prices and commanded less respect, Edo's swordsmiths and samurai avoided testers who couldn't certify their weapons at the highest level of strength. Miochin, unwilling to accept the loss of income, had hired rnin to procure corpses by theft and murder.
oWe'll test the blades from swordsmith Ibe, Miochin told the peasants, who had to be his sons. oI shall perform rykuruma and o kessa. The most difficult cuts of all: across the corpse's hips, and through the shoulder girdle. oYou will use the arms and legs for lesser blades.
The thieves stirred nervously. oI think someone followed us, one said. oHurry up and pay us, so we can get out of here.
Miochin gave a string of coins to the thieves. Outside, Sano and Hirata drew their swords, then burst into the room.
oTokugawa Special Police Force. You're all under arrest! Sano cried.
Amid exclamations of dismayed surprise, the thieves unsheathed their swords; Miochin and sons grabbed weapons off the wall. Aware that the penalty for theft and murder was death, the criminals advanced on Sano and Hirata, blades drawn, faces taut with desperation.
oThe building is surrounded, Sano said. oDrop your weapons and surrender.
Miochin laughed. oWhen oxen fly and snakes talk! he jeered. oYou shan't execute me for trying to earn my rice!
The criminals assaulted Sano and Hirata, who fought back, blades flashing. The detective corps, hearing the commotion, stormed into the room. Sano battled Miochin. The sword tester's blade lashed the air like a whirlwind. Gradually he drove Sano backward, into the courtyard. Sano returned cut for cut while he skirted a mound of sand upon which bodies would be tied to bamboo stakes for the testing of swords. He stumbled over a pile of charred bones and turned a backward somersault over a stone furnace where Miochin evidently destroyed the remains of his ill-gotten corpses. Landing on his feet, Sano lunged at Miochin. In the streaming downpour they clashed in mortal combat. The sword tester was fighting for his life and liberty. In a way, so was Sano.
Now he entered a plane where the corrupt regime that held him captive disappeared. He forgot the shogun; he forgot Aoi, and his self-imposed loneliness. He spared a last, worried thought for his men, who expertly battled the thieves and Miochin's sons. Their shouts and movements soon faded from his consciousness. All that mattered was his victory over this evil criminal.
A heady euphoria heightened Sano's perception. Quickly he saw that Miochin's strength lay in his feint and recovery. He lowered his sword, apparently intending a cut across Sano's stomach. Then his blade suddenly changed direction. Sano parried the sword testers diagonal chest slice almost too late. His counterstrike slashed Miochin's thigh. Miochin gasped in pain, but didn't falter. Then Sano took a risk he would have once instructed his students to avoid.
When Miochin hoisted his sword in both hands for a deadly vertical slash, Sano gambled that this was another feint. Resisting the instinctive urge to raise his weapon and shield his torso, he lowered and swung his blade.
It gashed Miochin's belly from side to side. The sword tester howled in horrified surprise. Reflex carried his arms out of the feinted downslash and sideways for the crosscut he'd really intended. The light went out of his eyes before he hit the ground.
Sano stepped back. He saw his men, all alive and well, hurrying to his rescue. The other criminals lay dead in the shop. Releasing the tension from his body in a series of deep gasps, Sano let the rain wash Miochin's blood off his sword, then sheathed it. Although killing and death were a samurai's natural domain, he hated taking lives. The act placed him uncomfortably close to the murderers he hunted. But this instance he could justify as necessary.
oSsakan-sama. Hirata's voice cracked as he addressed Sano, his face stricken. oSumimasen "excuse me, but that was a dangerous thing to do. You could have been killed. It's my duty to serve and protect you. You should have let me take Miochin.
oNever mind, Hirata. It's over now. And, merciful gods, with no casualties on his side! Still gasping for breath, Sano said, oWe'll report the raid to the local police. They can close down the shop, clear away the dead, and return the stolen corpse. His heart still pumped the exhilarating tonic of victory through his veins. Miochin's thieves would no longer prey on travelers or grieving families.
Hirata tore the hem from his cloak and bound Sano's left forearm, which bled from a cut he hadn't noticed. oYou'll need a doctor when we get back to Edo Castle.
Back to Edo Castle. The four words deflated Sano's spirits. At the castle, he must report to the shogun and face again the fact that a weak, foolish despot owned his soul. Glumly Sano looked forward to resuming his place in the corrupt Tokugawa political machine, and his bleak existence in an empty house haunted with memories of Aoi.
Until another search for truth and justice again gave his life honor and meaning.
IN THE MORNING, after a long night of giving orders and filing reports at police headquarters, Sano, Hirata, and the other detectives arrived at Edo Castle, which perched on its hilltop above the city, beneath low, ominous storm clouds. At the castle gate, a massive, ironclad door set in a high stone wall, guards admitted Sano and his men into the maze of passages and security checkpoints.
oI'll meet you at home, Sano told Hirata, referring to the mansion in the castle's Official Quarter where he and his retainers lived.
He followed a passage that wound up the hill between enclosed corridors and watchtowers manned by armed guards. He entered the inner precinct, crossed the garden, and stopped before the shogun's palace, a vast building with whitewashed plaster walls, carved wooden doors, beams, and window lattices, and a many-gabled gray tile roof.
oSsakan Sano Ichir, reporting to His Excellency, he told the guards stationed outside.
They bowed and opened the door without asking him to leave his swords or searching him for hidden weapons: He'd earned the shogun's trust. oYou may proceed to the inner garden, the chief guard said.
Sano walked down cypress-floored corridors past the government offices that occupied the building's outer rooms. A sliding door, manned by more guards, led him outside again, where he followed a flagstone path through Tokugawa Tsunayoshi's private garden. The pine trees' densely fringed boughs hung still and heavy in the humid heat. Lines filled the air with a cloying sweetness; bees buzzed lazily; dead maple leaves lay motionless on the pond's glassy surface. Above the castle, a dark storm front bled across the gray sky like an ink wash on wet paper. Distant thunder rumbled. The oppressive atmosphere intensified the trapped sensation that Sano always felt in the castle. He prayed for the shogun to assign him a new criminal investigation, not another ghost hunt or spying job. Then, as he neared the thatch-roofed pavilion, he stopped, disconcerted.
Chamberlain Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu "the shogun's second-in-command "occupied the center of the pavilion's raised wooden floor. Dressed in a cool silk summer kimono patterned in blue and ivory, he knelt before a large sheet of white paper, his slim hand holding a brush poised over it. A servant waited beside him, ready to replenish the ink, refill the water bowl, or supply him with fresh paper from a thick stack. In two rows flanking Yanagisawa knelt the five men who comprised the Council of Elders, the shogun's closest advisers and Yanagisawa's flunkies. More servants circled the pavilion, flapping fans to create an artificial breeze. But Tokugawa Tsunayoshi himself was nowhere in sight.
In a series of rapid, graceful curves and slashes, Yanagisawa swept his brush over the paper, writing a column of characters. oSsakan, he murmured. oWon't you join us.
Sano climbed the steps onto the pavilion, knelt, bowed, and offered formal greetings to the assembly. oHonorable Chamberlain, I've come to report to the shogun. Apprehension tightened Sano's chest: Yanagisawa's presence during an audience with the shogun boded ill for him.
Chamberlain Yanagisawa contemplated the verse he'd written. He frowned, shook his head, and motioned for the servant to remove the page. Then he looked up at Sano. Thirty-two years old, he'd been the shogun's lover since his youth. Tall and slender, with fine features and large, liquid eyes, he possessed an arresting masculine beauty at odds with his character.
oI'm afraid His Excellency is unavailable at the moment, he said. oWhatever you have to say, you may say to me.
His suave tone barely concealed a massive hostility. From Sano's first days as ssakan, Chamberlain Yanagisawa had viewed him as a rival for Tokugawa Tsunayoshi's favor, for power over the weak lord and thus the entire nation. He'd tried to sabotage Sano's investigation of the Bundori Murders, and have Sano beaten to death. Sano had survived, and succeeded anyway. Unfortunately he'd also caught Chamberlain Yanagisawa in a trap he'd set for the killer, who had taken Yanagisawa hostage, terrifying and brutalizing him before Sano could come to the rescue. Chamberlain Yanagisawa would never forgive this unintentional offense.
oHis Excellency ordered me to report directly to him upon my return to Edo Castle, Sano said. He knew Yanagisawa was deliberately blocking his access to Tokugawa Tsunayoshi. Long ago he'd abandoned the submissive manner that demeaned him without appeasing the chamberlain. Now he refused to back down. oI will speak to him. Sano understood Yanagisawa's anger, but all sympathy had fled when the chamberlain's retaliation campaign began. For the past year, Yanagisawa had spread vicious rumors about Sano, ranging from alleged drunkenness, sexual perversion, and embezzlement to violent abuse of citizens and disloyalty toward the regime. Sano had been forced to waste much time and money battling the slander and bribing cooperation from people whom Yanagisawa had ordered not to help him. Yanagisawa's spies dogged him constantly.
Yet so far, the chamberlain's efforts to discredit Sano had failed, as had the covert assassination attempts: a horseman nearly running him down in the street; arrows fired at him while he was in the woods on the shogun's ghost hunts. Sano continued to enjoy the favor of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, who had latched on to him with uncharacteristic steadfastness, requiring his constant service and company.
But now he experienced a sinking feeling as Yanagisawa said, oHis Excellency has a fever that requires a strict regimen of rest and quiet. He can see no one now "except myself, of course. Yanagisawa's finely modeled mouth turned up in a malevolent smile. oI shall relay to him the news of sword tester Miochin's death: According to official sources, he and his thieves were captured and slain by special troops sent by me.
Anger flared inside Sano, but seeing the elders waiting in veiled anticipation for him to make a scene, he controlled his temper. oYou can't hide the truth forever, Honorable Chamberlain, he said evenly. oWhen the shogun recovers, I'll tell him what really happened.
Chamberlain Yanagisawa dipped his brush into the ink. Across the fresh paper that the servant had placed before him, he quickly wrote three characters. Sano read them upside down: success, wind, and tree.
oI regret to say that you won't be here when His Excellency recovers. Chamberlain Yanagisawa pushed the paper away, accepted another from the servant, and reinked his brush. oBecause I have an assignment for you. One that will take you far, far from Edo.