Sano waved his bloody sword. The crowd scattered. People shrank back against the bridge’s railings to get out of his way. One man jumped over the rail and landed in the canal with a splash. Sano sped across the bridge. Desperation drove his legs to pump faster. The staff no longer battered him as he pulled ahead of his pursuers. But when he reached the gate, he saw trouble waiting for him: the two guards.
“That man is a murderer,” the assistant yelled to them. “Catch him!”
Sano had hardly cleared the gate when the guards joined in the chase. His heart was pounding furiously now; his chest heaved with each frantic breath. He heard more shouts. Heard swords rasp free of their scabbards, and the stamp of four instead of two pairs of running feet behind him. As he plunged into the maze of narrow streets, a cramp shot across his left side. He could run no faster. A quick glance backward told him that the men were gaining on him. His breath came in sobs now. Though he forced himself to keep moving, he tasted defeat. His skin tingled in anticipation of a sword’s swishing descent and the mortal agony as it gashed his back.
Then he spotted his salvation: one of his neighbors, an elderly samurai mounted on a brown horse, ambling toward him.
“I’m sorry, Wada-san,” he cried. “Please forgive me, but I must borrow your horse.”
The old man gave a startled grunt as Sano dragged him off his mount.
“I promise I’ll return it,” Sano shouted as he mounted the horse and slapped the reins. Would that he lived long enough!
Urging the horse to a gallop, he risked a backward glance. He saw the men still following, but falling rapidly behind him. The doshin waved his jitte, shouted something, then stopped, a hand pressed to his middle.
Triumph pulsed through Sano’s veins. He was free! For how long, though, he didn’t know. The doshin would alert his comrades across the city; soon they and their men would join the hunt for the murderer Sano Ichirō. And exactly how he would use his temporary freedom, he didn’t know either.
The alley was dim, deserted, and forbidding. On either side, rows of ramshackle buildings leaned inward, blocking much of the sky to form a short tunnel of twilight. Three public privies sent forth a sharp stench and leaked dirty water onto the ground. But Sano welcomed the alley as a haven from the streets of this poor section of Nihonbashi, where the Setsubun festivities were rapidly escalating in fervor. After a quick look behind him to make sure no one was following, he guided Wada-san’s horse into it. Seeing two adjacent doorways screened with bamboo lattices, he dismounted and squeezed both himself and the horse into the small space between them so that no one entering the alley from either end would see them. Then he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, trying to rest. To think.
His wild, directionless gallop through Edo had consumed the remainder of the afternoon. He’d had no time to think past his immediate aim of putting as much distance as possible between himself and the canal where he’d found O-hisa’s body. He had no plan except to lose himself in the crowds and avoid the police. In this he’d succeeded, barely. The teeming Setsubun revelers offered plenty of cover, but he’d sensed a heightened watchfulness about the police he’d spotted. Unusually tolerant of the antics taking place around them, they’d scanned each face as if looking for someone.
For him. Already.
Sano passed a trembling hand over his face. He had to plan his next move now. He couldn’t afford to waste a moment of his precious freedom. But the noise from the street clamored at his aching head; desolation paralyzed his mind. The wounds on his shoulders throbbed, and blood plastered them to his clothing. Already the underlying muscles had swelled and stiffened; he couldn’t turn his head or move his arms without pain. Fear had solidified in him like an iron skeleton. His whole body sagged with fatigue, and he’d never felt more alone. Shivering in his cloak, he reflected with amazement upon the changes that a few hours had wrought in his life.
Before finding O-hisa’s body, he’d had a choice whether to continue pursuing Lord Niu. Now he had none. He couldn’t turn his back on the events of the past fourteen days and go home. The doshin would be waiting for him there, no doubt with a small army of reinforcements to help carry him off to jail or kill him on the spot. Compared to this reality, the past disgrace he’d brought upon his family seemed insignificant.
He couldn’t sink back into comfortable obscurity. As a fugitive, he would spend the rest of his days on the run while the whole country hunted him. Even if he’d possessed the cash to provision himself and Wada-san’s horse for a journey, he knew that a flight to the provinces was futile. By now Magistrate Ogyu would have dispatched messengers to the highway checkpoint guards and village headmen, warning them to be on the watch for him. His quest for vengeance had merged with the simpler, more powerful desire for survival.
From deep inside himself, Sano summoned what strength he had left, a small but brave force now reduced to the bare samurai steel his father’s training had given him. He had no choice but to prove his innocence, or die in the attempt. Otherwise, his life was over anyway. If he remained a fugitive, everyone and everything he cared about-his family and friends and his honor-would be lost to him forever. To flee for his own life and let Lord Niu assassinate the shogun would be to fail in his ultimate duty to the highest lord of the land. The greatest disgrace of all. Sano’s mouth twisted in a bitter smile. If getting help from the authorities had seemed difficult before, it was impossible now. Anyone he approached would have him arrested before he could finish one sentence.
The sound of footsteps jarred Sano out of his gloomy contemplation. He laid a steadying hand on the horse’s neck and peered around the lattice screen. To his relief, he saw coming toward him not a doshin, but a man dressed in a gaudy purple-and-gold cloak and a strange flat cap. Obviously drunk, he zigzagged down the alley to the privies. Sano saw that his cap wasn’t one at all, but a mask, pushed up on his head out of the way. Selecting the middle of the identical wooden sheds, the man stumbled inside.
The sight of the man’s Setsubun costume roused Sano to action. A disguise was absolutely essential to the plan beginning to take shape in his mind. Mounting his horse, he walked it over to the privies and waited.
The drunk staggered out of the privy. With two swipes, Sano plucked the mask off his head and tore the cloak from his shoulders.
“Hey, what-” The man spun around and fell on his buttocks.
Sano kicked the horse’s sides as he stuffed the cloak under his arm and fastened the mask over his own face. It was, he saw, an armored face shield that must have once belonged to a general or other high-ranking officer. Made of black metal, it had slits cut out for the eyes and mouth, and a bristly black horsehair mustache.
“Filthy samurai!” the drunk bawled at him, shaking a fist. “Think you can just take whatever you want!”
Now doubly a thief, Sano started to gallop away with his stolen goods. How ironic that in his crusade to catch a criminal, he’d become one himself! Then he turned back. Taking some coins from his pouch, he threw them at the drunk. They clinked and scattered across the ground.
“Have these as payment,” he called. He might die at any moment, and he didn’t want his last act to be one of thievery, no matter how necessary. Besides, there was no use hoarding money now. If he survived this night-if his plan succeeded-he could earn more somehow. If not, then what little cash he carried wouldn’t even pay for his funeral. Now he wished he’d thought to pay Wada-san for the horse that he might never return.