So he wandered aimlessly through the city, turning corners at random-or so he thought, until he saw the moat and walls of Edo Jail looming before him. Torches flared on the ramparts; the guards at the gate wore rain cloaks over their armor. The whole edifice shimmered in the mist like a haunted castle. Sano had never imagined returning to the loathsome place, but he marched across the bridge and up to the guards without hesitation.
“I am Yoriki Sano Ichirō,” he said, hoping they hadn’t heard otherwise yet. “I wish to see Dr. Ito Genboku.” Conscious thought hadn’t provoked his desire to see Ito again, but now he saw the rightness of it. The doctor had made sacrifices for his own ideals. Sano could talk to him. Ito would understand his dilemma.
The guards hadn’t heard, and they admitted him. Instead of escorting him through the prison, one of them led him around the buildings, through a series of courtyards and passages, to a hut near the far wall. Its one window shone weakly; smoke rose from the skylight.
The guard opened the door without knocking. “Ito. Someone here to see you.” He bowed to Sano and left.
Since there was no veranda or entry way, Sano left his shoes on the ground beside the door, where the thatched roof’s overhang provided inadequate shelter from the rain. It didn’t matter; they were soaked anyway. He ducked his head to avoid hitting the low door frame.
He was standing at the threshold of a single room that occupied the entire hut. Ito knelt in the middle of the floor beside a small charcoal brazier, lamp and book in front of him. In the corner, Mura the eta was washing clothes in a bucket. The doctor regarded Sano without surprise.
“Somehow I always thought you would return,” he said. “Don’t just stand there shivering, come and warm yourself. Mura-san? Sake for our guest, please. And a bowl of rice gruel.”
Mura went to a makeshift kitchen composed of a one-burner stove and a few crowded shelves. Sano knelt by the brazier, grateful for its heat. He hadn’t realized how cold he was. Great shudders racked his body and rattled his teeth. He couldn’t hold his trembling hands still over the coals.
Without speaking, Ito rose. From the cabinet he took a quilt and brought it to Sano.
“No, thank you,” Sano said. The cabinet had held just the one quilt, his host’s own.
Ito continued to hold out the quilt. “Take off those wet clothes and put this around you, or you’ll be sick.” He added, “Please oblige me. I get few chances to offer hospitality.”
Sano did as he was told. He drank the heated sake and ate the steaming gruel that Mura brought him. When warmth returned to his body, he told Dr. Ito everything that had happened since they last met.
Ito listened without comment. When Sano finished, he said, “What will you do now?”
“I don’t know,” Sano admitted. “I thought you might help me decide.”
“I see. And why do you wish my advice?”
“Because you understand what it’s like to be in this situation. And because I value your opinion.”
Ito studied him in silence for a moment, his gaze stern but not without sympathy. Finally he said, “Sano-san, when I was convicted, I lost my home, my wife, my family, my wealth, my position, my servants, the respect of my peers, my health. My freedom. This room and the morgue are my entire world.
“I still have my studies”-he gestured toward the book-“and one friend, Mura, who helps me because he chooses to. But everything else is gone. I live in disgrace; I will die in disgrace. Often my pain and shame are almost unbearable. So I am the last person who would advise you to throw away your future prospects for the sake of your ideals.”
Sano felt like a man who has opened a secret treasure box only to find nothing inside. Somehow he’d expected more from Ito than the same conventional words he could have heard from anyone else.
Then Dr. Ito said, “But I will not tell you to forsake your ideals, either. You would not be able to live with yourself if you did.” He paused, gazing at Sano with a strange mixture of pity and approval. “I know this because I see much of myself in you. Giri, ninjō,” he finished with a sigh. “Tatemae, honne.”
“Yes.” Sano nodded, thinking how well his situation illustrated the two classic conflicts Ito had cited: duty versus desire, conformity versus self-expression. Eternal and unresolvable.
“Each man must decide for himself what matters most,” Ito began.
Sano waited. The flickering lamp made a hollow of brightness that contained only him and Ito. For now, the outside world didn’t exist.
“Each man must know when he has decided, and know what his decision is. I think you do, Sano-san.”
Sitting perfectly still as he absorbed Dr. Ito’s words, Sano gazed with unfocused eyes into the lamp’s flame. Images began to form in his mind. His dying father, symbol of the duty set out for him in the Way of the Warrior. Katsuragawa Shundai, who represented the status and rewards he could attain if he fulfilled that duty. But other images superseded these: Yukiko’s body burning on its pyre; the weeping Wisteria; Raiden’s bewildered face; Tsunehiko laughing as he rode along the Tōkaido. These images burned brighter than the others, lit as they were by the fire of Sano’s need for truth and justice. Time passed. The fire consumed the tangle of his uncertainty, leaving his mind clear and his head light. His breath escaped in a short laugh directed at his own self-delusion. He realized that Dr. Ito was right. He had decided, and he would continue his hunt for the murderer. Even if it meant sacrificing security and prosperity, and even his life. Honor must return to him as a result of following his own path, or not at all. And his father’s life depended upon his self-redemption. All his walking and thinking had been nothing but an attempt to avoid acknowledging these facts.
“Thank you for your hospitality and your insight, Ito-san,” he said. “Both have helped me beyond measure. But I mustn’t impose upon you any longer.”
He started to rise, feeling strengthened by the doctor’s solicitude but no more at peace than he had been when he’d arrived. With no authority and nothing but his own inadequate skills to rely upon, how would he bring a powerful, seemingly invincible murderer to justice?
“It is late,” Ito said. “The city gates will have already closed. You cannot return home tonight. Mura will make a bed for you here. Sleep, and in the morning you will have the strength and wisdom to do whatever you must.”
Chapter 20
The next morning found Sano back in the daimyo district. Dressed in a peasant’s shaggy straw rain cape and wide straw hat, he walked up and down the wide boulevard in front of the Niu’s yashiki, ostensibly collecting litter, but in reality watching their gate. Every so often he skewered some trash with his pointed stick and put it in his basket, hoping he could convince the guards that he was a street cleaner with every right to loiter outside their lords’ houses. He couldn’t let them identify him as ex-yoriki Sano Ichirō, barred from the Niu estate and keeping secret surveillance on young Lord Niu. If the Nius or Magistrate Ogyu found out what he was doing, he would be arrested, if not killed on the spot.
Sano pretended to scan the street for debris, while watching for Lord Niu to make an appearance. Subterfuge didn’t come naturally to him, but he had no choice except to wait and hope Lord Niu would lead him to evidence that he’d committed the murders. He had no authority or help, as Katsuragawa had reminded him, not enough money to buy answers, and no other way to avoid the ubiquitous Edo spies. The memory of what Midori had told him about Yukiko’s diary flashed through his mind. He had no other way of learning what Lord Niu had done that he would kill to hide.