“If you could see yourself!” Hoshina sobbed with uproarious laughter. “This is priceless!”
Sano waded toward the edge of the pit. As the spasms cramped his legs, he tottered. Hoshina slashed at him. Leaping away, Sano lost his footing. He swiped at Hoshina and almost fell. He tried to get past Hoshina and climb out of the water, but Hoshina ran alongside the pit faster than Sano could trudge within it.
“I’ve got you now!” Hoshina said as he sliced at Sano.
Fury begot cunning. Sano splashed armfuls of water at Hoshina.
“Hey!” Offended, Hoshina sprang back from the pit to avoid contamination.
Sano scrambled up its side. But he skidded on the muddy slime, all the way under the water again. Hoshina struck at him. The blade grazed his scalp. As he burst up for air, Hoshina’s blade came swinging at his face. He gasped a deep breath and sank just in time. He crouched on the bottom, eyes shut, doubled over with his arms protecting his head, holding his breath.
Hoshina’s sword stabbed down at him so fast that it seemed like a thousand blades impaling the murk above Sano, carving the soup of rotten flesh and lye. The sharp point impinged on Sano’s back, his shoulders. He forced himself not to move.
When he didn’t come up, the stabbing ceased.
In the watery stillness and quiet, Sano sensed Hoshina examining his blade and wondering if the blood on it meant Sano was dead. Sano couldn’t hold his breath much longer. His heart pounded; his lungs demanded that he inhale. The lye burned into his wounds. He tried to gauge exactly where Hoshina was standing. Just when he thought he must come up for air or drown, Sano felt Hoshina bend over the pit to look for him.
Sano erupted out of the pit, his sword raised. Through the viscous water that streamed off his face he saw the blurry image of Hoshina in front of him. Sano swung his sword at it with all his might.
Hoshina screamed.
He lifted his sword, too late. He took Sano’s strike clean across his neck.
Sano felt his blade slice through flesh, muscle, bone. A huge red fountain of warm blood sprayed him. Hoshina’s severed head splashed into the pit, an instant before his body toppled onto Sano.
31
The seventh month of the year brought clear, hot weather to Edo. The rainy season had finally let up. Reiko sat in her sunny private chambers with Midori, while in the adjacent room Masahiro had a reading lesson with his tutor. Little Taeko peered over his shoulder at his book as he read aloud. Midori helped Reiko remove the bandage on her belly. Underneath was a jagged, healing red cut.
“It looks better,” Midori said. “There’s no festering. You were very lucky.”
“Yes, I was.” Reiko’s heart still seized whenever she thought about that terrible moment when Ukon had tried to stab her. On each of the nine days that had passed since the attack, she’d burned incense and offered prayers of thanks to the gods that the scissors hadn’t penetrated deeper.
The baby kicked. Bulges appeared on her stomach. Midori smiled. “I see that Masahiro’s little brother or sister is as strong and healthy as ever.
“After all we’ve been through together, it’s a miracle.” Yet Reiko couldn’t help wondering how the violence and evil would affect her child.
Midori applied herbal ointment to the scar. “It’s wonderful that you’ve been exonerated.”
The high drama at the trial had kept the Edo gossip mill busy ever since. When Reiko and her escorts had taken Lady Mori and Ukon to the castle, Ukon had gone stark raving mad along the way. They’d had to tie her hands and lead her like a wild beast behind the palanquins that carried Reiko and Lady Mori. She’d wailed, sobbed, and cursed all the way to palace, where the shogun and Lord Matsudaira had already convened.
Everyone had waited almost an hour for Police Commissioner Hoshina. When the trial began without him, Ukon had been too incoherent to testify. The story of Lord Mori’s murder had been told by Lady Mori. The shogun and Lord Matsudaira had believed her. Since Hoshina wasn’t there to dissuade them, Lord Matsudaira had recommended that Reiko be pronounced innocent and Lady Mori and Ukon sentenced to death. The shogun had obliged.
“Those terrible women have been punished,” Midori said now, “and good riddance to them.”
Lady Mori had gone meekly to the execution ground, but Ukon had resisted to the end. She’d torn off her clothes, beaten her head on the floor, kicked and bitten the soldiers as they dragged her from the room. The shogun had said, “Well, ahh, that’s the most shocking thing I’ve ever seen.”
No sooner did he speak, than Sano and Hirata arrived.
“What took you so long?” Lord Matsudaira asked. “You not only missed your wife’s trial; you almost missed your own.”
Sano looked at Reiko. He read in her face that she’d been acquitted; relief and love flashed between them before he turned to Lord Matsudaira. “My apologies, but I had important business to attend to.”
Everyone including Reiko listened with new, dumbfounded shock as Sano told about Lily’s murder by Captain Torai, his kidnapping by Police Commissioner Hoshina, and the battle at the rendering factory. “Hoshina and Torai lost,” Sano said. “They’re both dead.”
In the silence that followed, Lord Matsudaira narrowed his eyes, calculating what this news meant for him. Then the shogun said, “Ahh, that’s too bad. But I never really liked them anyway.”
Reiko couldn’t believe the shogun’s callousness. Sano seemed glad the shogun didn’t take him to task for killing two high officials. He said, “Now, about the treason charges against me. I swear I’m innocent. Does anyone have any evidence to the contrary?”
No one did, now that Hoshina was gone.
“I recommend that we drop the charges against Chamberlain Sano and let him keep his post,” said Lord Matsudaira.
“Done,” the shogun said.
Now, as Reiko put on a fresh bandage, she said, “If not for Hirata-san, I would be a widow.” Sano had told her the details of the battle. “I owe him a great debt for saving my husband’s life.”
“He did no more than his duty,” Midori said, but she looked radiantly proud of Hirata.
“I haven’t seen him since the trial,” Reiko said. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know.” Midori sighed. “He left this morning. He didn’t say when he’ll be back.”
Sano had also left this morning, for some unnamed destination and one of many secret meetings since the trial. As Reiko wondered what was going on, she dressed for a trip.
“You’re not going out on more private inquiry business, are you?” Midori said disapprovingly. “Remember what happened last time.”
“This is something I have to do,” Reiko said. “I must fulfill my obligation to the dead.”
The establishment known as Blow-Dart Beach wasn’t located on a beach, but in the theater district. Nor did it offer the popular game in which players blew darts through wooden pipes at targets. It was an elegant two-story house, separated from the teahouses, shops, and actors’ dwellings around it by a fenced garden. Reiko, Lieutenant Asukai, and her other bodyguards walked up to the gate. Asukai rang the bell.
A manservant answered. He frowned at Reiko and said, “No women allowed.”
“Make an exception for this one,” Asukai said.
He strode through the gate, elbowing the servant aside. The bodyguards ushered Reiko after him. They passed through the front garden, an entry way, and a corridor that led to a private world. Here, plum trees shaded a party of men and boys. They lounged on cushions on the grass and in a wide, round, sunken bathtub filled with water. The men wore dressing gowns, loincloths, or nothing. The boys, who ranged in age from perhaps five years to fourteen, were clad in gaudy, feminine kimonos. Servants wandered among them, passing drinks, food, and tobacco. A band of musicians, dressed as women but obviously male, played the flute, samisen, and drum. In this world, the blow-pipe was a man’s penis, the dart his seed, and the target a young boy who aroused him for a price.