A new position, possibly a higher one with a larger stipend. And, with Katsuragawa negotiating for him and ensuring his financial security, a chance to marry into a high-ranking family. Sano could reclaim his social standing and some part of his honor. Such prospects would greatly ease his father’s disappointment.
Katsuragawa’s offer was generous, and Sano had to consider it. But he knew a bribe when he saw one. And the ghosts of Tsunehiko and Raiden stood between him and his acceptance of it.
“You’ll help me-if I stop investigating the murders?” he said, naming the obvious catch.
Katsuragawa’s mouth twisted with distaste at Sano’s bluntness. “All right, then: yes.”
“I can’t do that.”
Katsuragawa halted in his tracks. “Are you a fool, Sano Ichirō?” he demanded. He grabbed Sano by the shoulders and shook him. “Can you not see what you’re doing to yourself, to your father? Besides, you can do nothing about the murders now. You’re not a yoriki anymore. No one is obliged to answer your questions or follow your orders. If you attempt to conduct a private inquiry, you will be arrested and severely punished for interfering with government affairs. It’s over, Sano-san. Give up!”
“No.” As he pulled free of Katsuragawa’s grasp, Sano realized that with one word, he’d severed his relationship with his patron. An exhilarating sense of liberation came over him, tempered by fear. An influential patron who could provide introductions to the right people was an absolute necessity for a samurai who wanted to rise in the world. Without one, Sano could relinquish any hope of advancement. What had he done?
“Then you are a fool.” Katsuragawa brushed his hands together as if dusting off the last vestiges of his obligation to Sano and his family. He started away down the lane. Before he’d gone ten paces, he turned.
“Do you know why Magistrate Ogyu and I decided you would make a good yoriki?” he said. “Because we thought your inexperience would render you so incompetent as to be harmless. Because your indebtedness would make you easy to control.” Katsuragawa laughed in derision. “We were wrong about you then, but not now. If you pursue this ridiculous course, you are as good as dead.”
Twilight was falling by the time Sano reached his parents’ home, his horse still laden with the baggage from his trip, except for Tsunehiko’s ashes, which he’d reluctantly left with Ogyu’s clerk. Behind him trailed the two porters he’d hired to carry his possessions from the barracks. Dismounting, he helped them unload the bundles outside the gate, paid them, and sent them on their way. Then he stood alone in the gathering gloom, contemplating a thought just as dark.
As a samurai, he’d always known there might come a time when he must commit seppuku to avoid disgrace, or to atone for it. His training told him that time had come. After what had happened, only his ritual suicide could restore honor to his name and family. But although his warrior’s spirit welcomed the release and purification of death, he must forswear it. His life was not his to take until he had avenged Tsunehiko’s death, cleared Raiden’s name, and achieved justice for Yukiko, Noriyoshi, and Wisteria.
Sano roused himself to stable his horse and put his bundles in the entryway of the house. He slid open the door to the main room. To drive a dagger into his own stomach would have been easier. He dreaded facing his father, dreaded also seeing again the mark of death on the old man. So at first he was relieved to find the room empty. Then he saw something that disturbed him far more.
The door that connected the main room with the bedchamber stood open. Through it he saw his mother standing by the window, her back to him, despair evident in the slump of her shoulders. His father lay on the futon. His eyes were closed. Low, rumbling coughs shook his body almost continuously. Fear shot through Sano. He’d never seen his father take to bed so early. And the amount of sickroom paraphernalia arranged by the bed-tea bowls, washbasin, crumpled cloths, medicine jars-indicated that he’d been there all day, or longer.
“Otōsan?” Sano said.
His father stirred. Slowly he opened his eyes. A frown crossed his sunken face. Then the frown disappeared, as though the slight movement of facial muscles had exhausted him.
“Ichirō,” his mother said, turning with a strained smile.”What a surprise. We were not expecting you.”
Sano walked over to his mother and embraced her. Always a sturdy, robust woman, she now seemed smaller and more frail, as if weakened by her husband’s illness. Then he knelt beside his father.
“My son,” his father whispered. “Why have you come? Shouldn’t you be at your post? Even if your work is done for the day, the others will want you in the barracks.”
Should he make up some excuse, Sano wondered, and tell his father that he’d lost his position and his patron only when-or if-the old man grew stronger? Surely it would be an act of mercy.
His father’s emaciated hand emerged from under the quilt to touch Sano’s. “Go,” he said, making a feeble pushing motion. A cough shuddered through his body. “Do not shirk your duty.”
“Otōsan.” Sano swallowed against the dry lump in his throat. He couldn’t lie. His father’s own uncompromising honesty had always demanded the same from him. “I’m sorry, but I have something bad to tell you.”
He explained all that had happened, from the start of his investigation of the shinjū to his parting with Katsuragawa Shundai. When he finished, he braced himself for his father’s recriminations.
But his father said nothing. Instead he blinked once, slowly. Before he turned his face away, Sano saw the weak light in his eyes grow dimmer still.
“Otōsan, I’m sorry,” Sano said, less alarmed by the wordless rejection than by the knowledge that he might have just destroyed his father’s last chance for recovery. “Please forgive me. Don’t give up!”
He put his hand over his father’s. It shrank from his touch. For the old man, he no longer existed. Now he wished he had committed seppuku. His father would prefer a son dead than in this terrible disgrace which would speed him to his own grave.
“Otōsan!”
His mother was beside him, tugging gently on his arm, urging him to his feet. “Let your father rest,” she entreated him. “Wouldn’t you like to put your things away and have a bath before dinner?”
Sano turned away from her pleading eyes and anxious smile that begged him to act as though disaster hadn’t just shattered their world. He walked to the door.
“Where are you going?” his mother called, hurrying after him. “When will you be back?”
“I don’t know.”
A steady rain began to fall, drenching Sano’s clothes as he roamed the streets. It pattered onto the tile rooftops and dripped off eaves into puddles that splashed under his feet. Lamplight made hazy yellow squares of the windows he passed. The tops of the fire towers disappeared in mist and darkness. An occasional pedestrian hurried past him, hidden beneath an umbrella. From the alleys behind the houses, Sano could hear the rumble of wooden wheels and the clatter of buckets and dippers as night-soil collectors made their rounds. The night soil’s odor mingled with the clean scents of wet earth and wood, charcoal smoke and cooking.
Sano had been walking for hours; he’d lost track of how many. His legs ached, but his mind would not let him rest. All the thinking he’d done hadn’t reconciled him to either of only two possible courses of action: to somehow mend the rift between him and Katsuragawa Shundai and salvage his career, or to commit seppuku. Either way, he must relinquish the murder investigation that could only result in more disgrace and a dishonorable death for both himself and his father. But that was what he could not accept. His desire for truth and justice forbade such passive submission to defeat, even as the Way of the Warrior dictated filial piety and obedience.