The palanquin tilted and rocked as the bearers eased the poles off their shoulders. It thumped onto the ground, jolting Sano and Hirata. Hooves clopped and armor creaked as Hoshina and his retinue gathered around them. The quality of the sound suggested a wide yet enclosed space. The tannery stench was so overpowering that Sano felt swamped by it. He heard the men jump off their horses, then smooth, metallic rasps of swords drawn.
Panic rippled through Sano, through Hirata’s body next to him. The bearers cried, “No, masters! Please!” in voices shrill with terror. There was a scuffle, hissing noises and thuds, exclamations of horror quickly stifled.
Even as Sano realized what had happened, Hoshina said, “Take them out.” The palanquin door opened. Torai and another man reached in, grabbed Sano and Hirata, and dragged them onto the ground.
Sano found himself in a courtyard surrounded by low buildings with peeling plaster walls. The source of the stench was a pit in the center. Dead horses protruded from the murky water, which bubbled with gases and sent forth corrosive lye fumes. Two of Hoshina’s men held swords that dripped blood. Before them lay the corpses of the palanquin bearers, who’d been killed so they couldn’t spread word that Hoshina had kidnapped two high officials. More troops guarded four frightened men with shaggy hair and bare feet, dressed in ragged, dirty clothes. They were the eta whose rendering factory Hoshina had commandeered for disposing of Sano and Hirata.
A pair of legs clad in ornate metal shin guards strode up to Sano’s face. Twisting his neck, Sano saw Hoshina grinning down at him.
“Well, Chamberlain Sano,” Hoshina said, “our positions are finally reversed. I must say it feels good.” His voice was jittery with excitement, anticipation, and fear of his own daring. He kicked Sano hard in the ribs. Sano stifled a grunt of pain. Hoshina laughed and ordered his troops, “Sit them up by the pit.”
Soldiers dragged Sano and Hirata across ground slick with mud, blood, and entrails and littered with broken bones, to the water’s edge, and propped them on their knees. Stiff and sore from the ride, Sano hoped the men wouldn’t notice that his ropes were loose enough that he might squeeze one hand through. Hoshina jerked the gags out of Sano’s mouth, then Hirata’s. Now Sano could taste the noxious fumes that wafted over them.
“Any last words before you disappear forever?” Hoshina said.
Sano looked into the pit. Greenish bubbles burped around the decomposing horse carcasses. He swallowed.
“Don’t you think I’ve chosen a good place for you to vanish?” Hoshina sounded eager to be reassured. “It’ll be as if you both dropped off the face of the earth.”
Because the eta would be too afraid of Hoshina to talk even if anyone would listen to them. Sano reminded himself that he had only one death, and it was the biggest test of his samurai character. He must face it with dignity and courage, not waste it on fear. He saw Hirata’s rigid expression and knew his friend was thinking the same thoughts, fighting the same battle for self-control. At least they would die together.
“I’m glad to see that you have some imagination,” Sano answered Hoshina. “I thought you were totally without any.”
Although Hoshina laughed, he looked irate: This wasn’t the attitude he wanted from Sano. “Still a wise bastard to the end, eh?”
“Let’s get on with it, already,” Torai muttered. He and the other men restlessly paced the courtyard.
Hoshina seemed as if he’d rather draw out Sano’s demise, the better to enjoy it. “You’re treating this as a joke, when you should be using your famous wits for some better purpose. Such as giving me a reason why I should spare your life.”
Sano wouldn’t give Hoshina the pleasure of hearing him beg for mercy. “I’d rather talk about Lord Mori’s murder. If this is the end for me, it can’t hurt you to tell me how you killed him and managed to frame my wife.” Before he died, at least Sano wanted the satisfaction of knowing the truth.
“Don’t you ever give up?” Exasperation crossed Hoshina’s face. “I told you before, and I’ll tell you now, I was not responsible for the murder.” He spoke through gritted teeth.
“Well, you must have been part of Lord Mori’s conspiracy to overthrow Lord Matsudaira. You must have planted my notes in the warehouse with the weapons.”
“For the last time, I wasn’t! And I didn’t!”
“But you were responsible for Lady Nyogo lying about me during the seance.” Sano was determined to get a confession not only for its own sake, but because it might put off his death a little longer.
“Yes, yes, all right.” Hoshina impatiently waved away Sano’s words. “But everything I did was after the fact. The first I heard of Lord Mori’s murder and your wife was right before I walked into your meeting with Lord Matsudaira and the shogun. I only took advantage of what happened.”
“Do you believe him?” Hirata said, incredulous.
Sano did, in spite of himself. “He’s got no reason to lie anymore.” And if Hoshina were the mastermind behind the whole plot against Reiko and Sano, he would be bragging about it. Sano had been wrong about Hoshina. How strange that his investigation should end in a showdown between them anyway.
“Then who did kill Lord Mori and set Lady Reiko up to take the blame?” Hirata asked.
“I suppose we’ll never know.” Sano resigned himself to the fact.
“Enough of this,” Hoshina said. Now that he realized Sano wasn’t going to grovel, he was in a hurry to get things over with. His eyes twinkled with cruel mischief. “I do believe I’ll give you the pleasure of watching your comrade die first. Torai-san, you may do the honors.”
29
“We decided that Lady Mori should invite you to dinner that night,” Ukon said. “I put a potion in the wine I served you.”
“What kind of potion?” Reiko asked.
“Coptis, lotus, and biota seeds, longan berries, white peony buds, belladonna, and opium.”
Reiko was aghast to hear that she’d been drugged with such a potent concoction. No wonder she’d lost her memory, had mental lapses, and thought she was going insane: It had played havoc with her mind. She was lucky to be alive, glad to know at last what had happened.
“We waited for you to fall asleep,” Ukon said. “When you sneaked out of the party, we followed you.”
Reiko pictured herself stealing through the estate, trailed by the two women. No wonder she’d felt as if she were being watched.
“How convenient for us that you ended up at Lord Mori’s private chambers.” Ukon snickered. “You saved us the trouble of carrying you there. And how convenient that you passed out right on his doorstep.”
“So that’s how you got me under your control,” Reiko said. “But what about Lord Mori? He wasn’t unconscious and helpless.”
“Oh, yes, he was. Earlier in the evening, I’d put the same potion in his wine as yours.” Ukon preened at her own cleverness. Reiko remembered the decanter she’d seen in Lord Mori’s room. “And he’d dismissed his guards. By the time you fainted, he was all alone and too sleepy to mind very much when we dragged you into his room.”
Sudden dizziness washed over Reiko. Time whirled backward. For a moment she was in Lord Mori’s room. He was in the bed. He blinked in confusion and mumbled, “Who are you? What are you doing here?” Her vision had been a real memory, a fragment of what had occurred. Now it expanded to include the hazy figures of Ukon and Lady Mori, who were with him.
“We undressed Lord Mori. It was hard because even though he didn’t fight us, he was big and heavy,” Ukon said.
Reiko frowned, assailed by another flash of memory. The two women struggled to remove Lord Mori’s robe from his inert body. Their voices echoed through her semiconsciousness.