But she shook her head. “It’s my duty to die. It’s your duty to do as I asked you.”
“Never!” Sano drew Reiko close. He felt shivers coursing through her as she leaned against him.
“This is worse than all those other times we’ve been in trouble, isn’t it?” she whispered. “We’ve done the things that saved us then, but this time we’ve failed. This time is really going to be the end for us, isn’t it?”
“No, it isn’t,” Sano said, determined to keep up their spirits.
Reiko lifted her face to his. Her eyes, wide with panic, beseeched him. “What can we do?”
He summoned his confidence, tried to infuse it into her. “We trust in ourselves. We don’t give up trying to find out the real truth about the murder.”
“But both our investigations have reached dead ends. What if this is the one crime we can’t solve, when it matters the most?”
He felt their child move inside her body, heard Masahiro’s voice in the distance. “Don’t even think about that.”
They sat silent, drawing comfort from their closeness. Sano wished he could stop time, could preserve this moment while they were still safe together, could shut out the dangerous world. But a manservant came to the door and said, “Excuse the interruption, but Sosakan Hi-rata is here to see you.”
Sano didn’t want to leave Reiko, and this was one instance when he didn’t welcome seeing his friend, but he couldn’t put it off. “I’m coming,” he told the servant.
Reiko clung to him, her face as panicky as if she thought he would never return, and he said, “You’d better put on some dry clothes. I’ll be with you soon.”
She nodded. Sano tore himself away. He found Hirata alone in the audience chamber, looking tired but elated.
“I’ve discovered something that might be important,” Hirata said.
Once more Sano was struck by how Hirata had changed. His image seemed brighter than the single lantern in the room could account for, as if his rigorous training had reduced his flesh so that the energy inside him showed. But although the change might be good for Hirata, it hadn’t been for the investigation.
“What is it?” Sano asked.
Hirata frowned slightly at the coolness in Sano’s manner. “It’s Enju. His alibi has a lot of room for doubt. And there’s reason to think that he and Lord Mori weren’t the most loving father and son in the world.”
He described how Enju could have arranged for someone to impersonate him traveling on the highway. He went on to the doctor who’d said that living at the Mori estate had changed Enju for the worse, and neither the young man nor his mother had attended Lord Mori during his near-fatal illness.
Sano was momentarily distracted from his problems concerning Hirata. “So your discoveries have brought us back to the family.”
He’d been so focused on Hoshina, he had to remind himself that Lady Mori, if not Enju, had been at the estate that night and invited Reiko there herself. Although he still favored Hoshina as the source of his troubles and Reiko’s, he couldn’t dismiss Lord Mori’s closest relations. Especially when incriminating them could exonerate Reiko.
“Lady Mori and Enju should be investigated further,” Sano said.
“I can do that tomorrow,” Hirata offered.
Here was the time to tackle the difficult issue. Sano said, “We’ll discuss that later. We have something else to talk about first.”
“What?” Hirata said, obviously wondering if something disastrous had happened-or if he’d done something wrong.
Sano decided not to tell him about Reiko’s revelations. “I examined the guns from Lord Mori’s warehouse. I found a possible connection between some of them and Police Commissioner Hoshina.” As he explained about the craftsmen’s marks and the weapons missing from the police arsenal, surprise blended with dismay in Hirata’s expression. “I must ask you why you didn’t notice the marks.”
Hirata opened his mouth to speak, closed it, then flopped his hands. “I guess I should have. I don’t know where my mind was.”
But they both knew it had been on esoteric martial arts techniques. Sano mustered the stomach for what he needed to say. This sort of personal exchange was more difficult than a sword-fight. “You missed an important clue. If I hadn’t taken a look at those guns myself, it might have gone undiscovered.”
Hirata hesitated, clearly torn between the impulse to apologize and the urge to defend himself. “But you did look. You found the connection to Hoshina. And it doesn’t seem to have made any difference. You haven’t arrested him yet? You’re still under suspicion?”
“True,” Sano said, “but if you’d found it yesterday, it might have made a difference. Since then, Lord Matsudaira has found out about my notes in the warehouse. The evidence implicating Hoshina might have convinced him yesterday and gotten me off the hook. Today it’s not enough because his trust in me is almost gone. I can’t risk a major move against Hoshina now.”
And if Sano had known about the guns this morning, he would have had more leverage to use on Hoshina, could even have forced a confession from him.
Now Hirata stared in horror because Sano’s fortunes had declined so drastically and his slip had cost Sano a valuable chance. “But maybe we can still find a way to beat Hoshina. Maybe one mistake isn’t so bad.”
“It wouldn’t be so bad if this were your only mistake, but it’s not. First there was that anonymous tip.” Sano wondered which of them felt worse. “Nobody can know what would have happened if you’d traced it earlier, but you might have discovered that Lord Mori was plotting a coup before he was murdered, and he might have been executed before someone could frame Reiko or implicate me in the plot.”
The defiance went out of Hirata, and he fell to his knees. Ashen and mortified, he bowed. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say, except that I will commit seppuku to make amends.”
Sano was both alarmed by and opposed to this plan. Although ritual suicide was required of a samurai who neglected his duty to his master, Sano thought death was often too quickly chosen, an avoidance of facing and correcting one’s transgressions. He couldn’t allow Hirata such a harsh punishment for mistakes, no matter how serious, after everything Hirata had done for him over the years. Nor could he bear that both his wife and his friend were ready to take their own lives.
“Get up,” Sano said. “I forbid you to commit seppuku. What I want is for you to stop trying to dedicate yourself to your martial arts and serve me at the same time.”
Hirata lurched to his feet. Even though his bad leg had mended, his movements still lacked grace. “I can do both,” he said in a tone that rang with more desperation than conviction. “I’ll prove it.”
“That won’t work,” Sano said, even though their history pushed him toward giving in. “You know as well as I do.”
Misery exuded from Hirata. “If you order me to give up my training, I will.”
Now Sano faced a dilemma. He knew that even though Hirata’s samurai honor had been compromised by a divided mind, Hirata wouldn’t disobey a direct order. But he couldn’t deny Hirata the thing that was making him a whole man again. He couldn’t afford to pay the price of another slip himself, when Reiko, their unborn child, and Masahiro would also pay. But although he could dictate Hirata’s actions, he couldn’t enforce the kind of loyalty he needed.
“The choice is for you to make,” Sano said. “If you choose your training, I’ll release you from my service.”
And their nine years as master and retainer, the most sacred bond in the samurai code of honor, would end. Sano felt a shattering sensation in the air.
The ghastly look in Hirata’s eyes said he felt it, too. A wide, lonely distance opened between them. Hirata said in a cautious voice, “May I investigate Enju and Lady Mori tomorrow?”