Her voice remained calm, but an underlying tremor told Sano that he’d shaken her. She wasn’t lying-why would she bother, since she planned to kill him anyway? She didn’t know about her son’s conspiracy! She’d arranged four deaths solely to cover the lesser of Lord Niu’s crimes. But Sano’s surprise at this discovery was nothing compared to that he experienced as he watched her eyes take on a haunted, inward-gazing look. She didn’t want to believe her son guilty of treason-but she did believe. She knew what he was capable of doing.
Sano stumbled as Eii-chan dragged him toward the door. He continued quickly: “Your son and a group of other sons of daimyo plan to assassinate the shogun and overthrow the Tokugawa government.”
They were out the door before Lady Niu spoke.
“Wait, Eii-chan… bring him back.” She sounded both eager and reluctant, wanting and yet not wanting to hear. “How do you know this?” she asked Sano.
On his knees before her once again, Sano told her. When he finished, she didn’t respond at once. She frowned, deep in thought, while he waited in suspense. What would she do? He sensed that he now had a chance to save his life, but he couldn’t guess what his next step should be until she made hers.
Then Lady Niu’s face cleared. “You have a most impressive imagination, Sano-san, to dream up such a tale,” she said, her smile back in place. “It amazes me that you have even managed to convince yourself that this scroll exists, so completely that you would risk your life by coming here to steal it.”
Sano’s chest tightened as he saw that Lady Niu had conquered her doubts about her son. But he didn’t let her see his dismay.
“How do you know the scroll doesn’t exist?” he said. “Can you say for a fact that it isn’t in your son’s possession? What do you think he does when he goes to the summer villa in winter?”
Working against his natural inclination to address a daimyo’s lady with deference, he hurled the questions at her. And was rewarded by a flicker of doubt in her eyes.
“Why don’t we go to young Lord Niu’s chambers and look for the scroll now? Wouldn’t you like to prove I’m wrong-if you can?”
He’d gambled that Lady Niu couldn’t resist a direct challenge. She didn’t disappoint him.
“Very well,” she said, haughty and disdainful now. “We shall go at once. And when this futile exercise is finished, Eii-chan will see that you suffer doubly for wasting my time and addressing me in such a rude manner.” She rose, picking up a lamp.
Lord Niu’s chambers were in a self-contained house across the garden from Lady Niu’s. With Eii-chan close behind him holding on to his ropes, Sano followed Lady Niu inside. She slid open a door.
“Bring him in, Eii-chan,” she called over her shoulder as she entered the room.
The room’s mean proportions surprised Sano, as did the stark-ness of its undecorated white walls and bare-beamed ceiling. Entirely different from what he’d seen of the rest of the house, it looked like a monk’s cell. Even in the dim glow of Lady Niu’s lamp, he couldn’t miss the cracked plaster, the worn spots in the tatami, and the patched windowpanes. The room was very cold, but he didn’t see a single brazier. He would have expected a daimyo’s son to live surrounded by lavish displays of wealth. But now he decided that the room suited Lord Niu perfectly. A visual statement against self-indulgence, its austerity reflected the stern warrior values that Lord Niu upheld.
“And now I will show you that you are wrong about my son,” Lady Niu said. Her voice had a too-bright quality, as if she thought that by convincing him she could convince herself. Setting her lamp on the floor, she began opening the cabinets that covered one wall.
The cabinets held very little-cotton bedding, toilet articles, a few of the plain dark kimonos that Lord Niu favored, a chest of books and another of writing materials. Lady Niu smiled as she made an exaggerated show of examining everything, but her hands shook. When she sorted through the chests, she cringed like a woman expecting a snake to strike at her.
Sano watched her in silence. He realized he was holding his breath, and expelled it. What if she didn’t find the scroll? What if she did? Getting her to help him look might not be the clever move it had seemed at first. Either way, she was bound to punish him. Cold sweat formed on his skin. He clenched his teeth to keep himself from shivering in the frigid air. The pain in his shoulders worsened.
Lady Niu stooped to investigate the last section of the cabinet, a shelf that held underclothes. She pulled out each item and replaced it, stroking the fabric absently. Finally she straightened and spread her empty hands.
“See?” she said with obvious relief and a genuine smile. “The scroll you described does not exist. There is no evidence of any conspiracy.” She folded her arms as her smile vanished. “You will pay dearly for this insult to my son and me.” Her eyes flashed a signal to her manservant. “Eii-chan. Proceed.”
As Eii-chan yanked on the ropes and pulled him toward the door, Sano cast one last desperate glance at the cabinet. He saw something he hadn’t noticed before, which gave him hope.
“Look, Lady Niu,” he cried. “There-in the cabinet. A place you missed. Do you see it?”
Lady Niu frowned, but her eyes went to the cabinet. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. Eii-chan paused and turned toward his mistress for her orders.
Knowing this was his last chance, Sano hurried on: “Above the shelf of undergarments. That blank rectangular panel. There’s a hidden compartment behind it!” Many cabinets had such compartments, for hiding money from thieves. Would that Lord Niu’s did, too, and that he’d found it!
Hesitantly Lady Niu tapped the panel with her knuckle. A hollow sound resulted, and she quickly withdrew her hand.
“It is nothing,” she said. “Just… just a design flaw. The cabinet is poorly made, my son won’t have expensive furnishings in his chambers… ” Her voice trailed off, and she lifted troubled eyes to Sano.
Sano could see her need to deny her son’s crime, and her need to know whether the compartment contained the scroll. With a shock he realized that he and Lady Niu had more in common than he’d ever thought possible. Out of a need to control the forces generated by her son’s turbulent nature, she might scheme and kill and destroy. Hers was a dangerous, misplaced loyalty. But like himself, she would never rest until she knew the truth. The knowledge both disgusted and heartened Sano. He thought he knew what her decision would be now. He let her struggle with herself until she reached it.
“Eii-chan, remove this panel,” Lady Niu ordered.
Dragging Sano with him. Eii-chan walked to the cabinet. Sano watched in an agony of anticipation as the manservant drew his short sword with his free hand and applied it to the panel. Lady Niu held the lamp close so that Eii-chan could see. The only sounds in the room were her rapid breaths, the scratch of metal against wood, and the distant bursts of firecrackers from the street.
Eii-chan inserted the blade beneath the panel. With a single quick movement, he bore down on the sword’s handle. The panel came loose with a sharp crack that made them all start. As it fell to the floor, Sano felt a surge of triumph. He heard Lady Niu gasp.
There before them was a narrow, dark compartment just large enough to admit a man’s two hands. Lady Niu reached inside it. The stricken look on her face told him what she’d found even before she pulled out the scroll.