Ahead of Sano, a guard tower rose from the wall that surrounded the compound. Sentries leaned from the windows, holding out lanterns to see what the commotion was. Sano pointed and shouted to them, “There’s an intruder on the roof! Shoot him!”
The sentries fired arrows out the windows. The night filled with the whizzing sound of arrows and the clatters as they struck the tiles. Sano frantically scanned the roofs, but he could see no sign of the intruder. The guards joined him, breathless and panting.
“He’s gone,” one said.
“He must have jumped onto the wall and out of the compound,” said another.
“At least he didn’t hurt anyone, did he?” said the first, who was the captain of Sano’s night patrol.
A thought pierced Sano as he recalled awakening in the darkness with the intruder near him. Cold, pure dread trickled into his heart. “I want the intruder caught. Go to the Edo Castle defense commander. Tell him I want every guard out searching right now.”
“We’ll catch him,” the night patrol captain assured Sano as he hurried off to obey. “He can’t get out of the castle.”
But a nightlong search, conducted by thousands of troops who explored every corner of Edo Castle, failed to net the intruder.
Sano, who’d waited in the guard command station, trudged home at dawn. Reiko met him at the door of the mansion. Her look of bright anticipation faded as she read Sano’s face.
“He escaped?” she said.
“As if by magic.” The dread that had multiplied in Sano during the long night possessed him like an evil spirit. If he spoke of it, the self-control he’d maintained in front of his men would shatter and he would break down. He hurried past Reiko into the house. “I don’t know how he did it, but he could be anywhere in the city by now.”
“Who do you think he is?” Reiko said, following Sano.
“I can’t put a name to him,” Sano said as he strode along the corridors to their private chambers, “but who else would sneak up on and attack a high official of Lord Matsudaira’s new regime?”
“The assassin who killed the metsuke chief and those other men?” Reiko said, breathless with surprise as well as from keeping up with Sano. “Do you think he came here to kill you?”
“I know it.” Even now Sano felt the assassin’s deadly intent like a poison in his blood. He prayed that the memory was all the assassin had left with him.
“Does that mean he’s someone within the regime?”
“Maybe. It would explain how he got into the castle.”
“Why are you walking so fast?” Reiko said as they rushed past servants who hovered in the corridor.
Sano burst into their bedchamber. “Light all the lanterns,” he told Reiko.
“Why? What’s wrong?” she said, clearly baffled.
“For once in your life, just do what I say without arguing!” Sano shouted.
Reiko’s mouth fell open in shock, but she obeyed. The lanterns filled the room with hot, smoky light. Sano flung open the cabinet, took out a mirror, and peered at his tense, haunted face. He discarded the mirror and stripped naked. He extended his arms, turning them as he inspected every minute detail of his skin from shoulders to fingertips. He examined his torso, legs, and feet.
“What are you doing?” Reiko said.
Sano turned his back to her and demanded, “Do you see a mark on me?”
“A mark?” She ran her hands over him. “No,” she said, sounding even more perplexed. “What-”
But of course it was too soon for the telltale bruise to develop. As Sano faced Reiko, he saw horrified enlightenment in her eyes. Her hand clasped her throat.
“Merciful gods,” she whispered. “Did he touch you?”
They stared at each other, both paralyzed by fear that he would be the sixth victim of dim-mak.
“I don’t know,” Sano said, “but I think he did. I think that’s what woke me up.”
“No!” Reiko clutched Sano’s hands, frantic to deny it. “You must be mistaken. You don’t feel anything bad happening inside, do you?”
Sano shook his head. “But I don’t suppose the others did, either.” In his mind he saw the intruder bending over him while he lay asleep in bed, stealthily reaching out a hand toward him. His whole body prickled with the sensation of the fatal touch. Was this imagination or reality? “They didn’t know anything was wrong with them, until…”
Breathless and frantic, Reiko said, “I’m calling a physician!”
“It’s no use. If I’ve been given a death-touch, the damage is done. Medical treatment can’t save me.”
Tears shone in Reiko’s eyes. “What are we going to do?”
That fate could be altered so suddenly for the worse, in a mere instant, amazed Sano. If the killer had indeed touched him, he could be doomed even before Lord Matsudaira punished him for failing to catch the assassin or Hoshina brought him down. The thought of his life cut short, of leaving his beloved wife and son, appalled him. He had scant comfort to offer Reiko.
“There’s nothing we can do now,” he said, “except wait two days and see what happens.”
22
A dense morning mist shrouded Edo, blurring the distinction between earth and sky. Invisible boats floated on the rivers and canals. The voices of people crossing the bridges were links in chains of sound that spanned the water.
In the slum that bordered Edo Jail, four square blocks lay in ruins. Wisps of smoke still rose from the burned timbers, blackened and fallen roof tiles, and ash heaps where once many houses had stood. Desolate residents picked through the debris, trying to salvage their possessions. But the jail loomed intact beyond the wreckage. Across the bridge and in through its gate filed the prisoners who had been released when the fire had started yesterday. They’d voluntarily returned to finish serving their sentences or awaiting their trials. Two jailers, stationed with the guards at the gate, counted heads and checked names off a list.
When the last prisoner had walked inside, one jailer said, “This is a surprise. Usually they all come back. This time we’re missing one.”
Reiko stared out the window of her palanquin as it carried her out of Edo Castle, but she barely noticed the sights or sounds. Fear that her husband would die inhabited her mind like a malignant presence, crowding out the world around her. The sob caught in her throat grew larger by the moment. The idea of losing Sano, of living without him, was beyond unbearable.
When he’d told her the terrible possibility that the assassin had given him the touch of death, Reiko had wanted to cling tight to him, to anchor him to her and to life. She’d been alarmed when he’d said he had to go out.
“Where?” she’d asked. “Why?”
“To continue my hunt for the assassin,” he’d said.
“Now?”
Calm detachment had replaced his terror. “As soon as I’ve washed, dressed, and eaten.” He headed toward the bath chamber.
“Must you?” Reiko said, hurrying after him. She didn’t want to let him out of her sight.
“I still have a job to do,” Sano said.
“But if you have only two days to live, we should spend them together,” Reiko protested.
In the bath chamber, Sano poured a bucket of water over his body and scrubbed himself. “Lord Matsudaira and the shogun wouldn’t accept that excuse. They’ve given me orders to catch the killer, and I must obey.”
Reiko experienced a sudden furious hatred for Bushido, which gave his superiors the right to treat him like a slave. Never before had the samurai code of honor seemed so cruel. “If there’s one time when you should disobey orders, this is it. Tell Lord Matsudaira and the shogun that you’ve already sacrificed your life for them, and they should go catch the killer themselves.” Beside herself with desperation, Reiko pleaded, “Stay home, with me and Masahiro.”