Two guards eased Midori down the tower stairs and carried her on a litter through the forest. More guards herded Reiko, Lady Yanagisawa, and Keisho-in behind her in the rain and locked them inside a wing of the main palace. The room was dingy and smelled of the dampness and mold that discolored its bare walls, but it was furnished with tattered cushions, frayed tatami, enough bedding for all the women, a basin of hot water, and a pile of rags. An undamaged roof kept out the rain.
As Reiko helped the other women settle Midori on a futon, she breathed a prayer of thanks that the Dragon King had decided to relocate them. She glanced out the barred windows at the gray, stormy lake, visible through the trees. Here, on ground level and nearer to the boats, freedom beckoned. But devising an escape would have to wait.
Midori shrieked, convulsed, and wept harder with each strengthening pain. She sat up, huffed, bore down, and grunted again and again, then fell back on the bed.
“It hurts so much,” she cried. Terror and panic filled her eyes. “I can’t bear any more!”
“Calm yourself,” Reiko said, pressing on Midori’s spinal potent points. But only delivering the baby would bring relief. She stifled her fear that Midori would succumb to the agony. “It will be over soon.”
Lady Yanagisawa sat helplessly wringing her hands. Keisho-in peered between Midori’s humped legs and exclaimed, “Look! The baby is coming!”
Reiko saw a small, round portion of the infant’s head, covered by fuzzy black hair and bloody, oozing fluid, at the mouth of Midori’s womanhood. “Push,” she urged Midori.
But Midori’s labors weakened even while the pains wracked her. She strained, but feebly. “It won’t come out!” Her voice rose in hysteria. “It’s stuck!”
“Try a little harder,” Reiko begged.
“I can’t!” A frenzy of sobbing and thrashing betook Midori. “I’m going to die! Oh no, oh no, oh no!”
“Oh, for the grace of Buddha,” Lady Keisho-in said, grimacing in annoyance.
She drew back her hand and slapped Midori hard on the cheek. The blow abruptly silenced Midori. She stared in gasping, wounded surprise at Keisho-in.
“You’re going to have this baby whether you like it or not,” Keisho-in said. “Quit your silly whining. Show some courage.” She knelt at Midori’s feet and grasped her hands. “Now push!”
For once she’d used her authority to good purpose. Midori wheezed in a deep breath. Clinging to Keisho-in’s hands like a rider trying to rein in a galloping horse, she raised herself forward. She pushed so hard that her face turned bright red and a savage growl arose from her throat.
“Good!” Keisho-in said. “Again!”
Midori clung, pushed, and growled. Reiko could hardly believe that Keisho-in had risen above her bad temper and given Midori the will to succeed. Now Midori strained with all her might. She screamed in triumph and release. Out of her slid the baby, its translucent pink skin streaked with blood and lined with blue veins, its eyes closed.
Keisho-in, Reiko, and Lady Yanagisawa cheered. While Midori lay panting and exhausted, Keisho-in held up the baby and said, “Look, you have a little girl.”
The baby opened her mouth, and a loud wail emerged. Her tiny hands flexed. Midori gazed at her with awestruck love. Reiko belatedly noticed three guards standing in the open door, gaping at the scene.
“Don’t just stand there, someone bring a dagger and cut the cord,” Lady Keisho-in ordered them.
A guard complied; then he and his comrades departed. Keisho-in laid the child at Midori’s breast. While Midori cuddled her, the child suckled.
“She’s so beautiful,” Midori murmured.
Tears stung Reiko’s eyes as she and Lady Yanagisawa smiled. Keisho-in said, “Here comes the afterbirth.”
The shared miracle of a new life raised their downcast spirits; new hope for the future banished the pall of fear, misery, and danger. But Midori’s face crumpled. She began sobbing as if heartbroken.
“What’s wrong?” Reiko said.
“I wish Hirata-san could see his daughter,” Midori cried. “Maybe he never will.”
Harsh reality shattered the joyous mood. Reiko, Lady Yanagisawa, and Keisho-in bowed their heads, unable to look at the innocent child that had been born into peril. Even while Reiko remembered the nearby boats, she knew that running away would be more difficult now than ever, with the fragile newborn. And since she couldn’t count on anyone to rescue her and her companions before they came to harm, their lives depended on her manipulating the Dragon King into freeing them.
“Your Excellency, we bring good news,” said Chamberlain Yanagisawa. He and Sano knelt before the dais in the audience hall and bowed to the shogun. “We’ve found proof that Dannoshin Minoru is the Dragon King. And we’ve discovered the location of a piece of property he owns. We believe he has imprisoned your mother there.”
“You’re too late!” the shogun crowed. There was rosy color in his usually pale cheeks, and an uncharacteristic sparkle in his eyes. “I, ahh, already know!” Hopping up and down in a little dance of triumph, he said, “The Dragon King has taken my mother to a castle on an island in a lake on the Izu Peninsula.”
Sano reared back in surprise to hear the shogun name the site that he and Yanagisawa had just found on the map in the archives. He felt his mouth open and a frown contract his forehead. He glanced sideways and saw Yanagisawa reacting in the same manner.
“How did you find out?” Completely flummoxed for once in his life, Yanagisawa stared at the shogun.
“The maid Suiren is conscious,” the shogun said. “I, ahh, talked to her.” He giggled in delight at Yanagisawa’s and Sano’s discomposure; his attendants hid smiles. “She told me she’d overheard the, ahh, kidnappers say where they were going.”
Sano and Yanagisawa exchanged a look of amazement. That their lord should take such initiative was something Sano had never expected. That Suiren should turn out to possess vital information, after he’d virtually given up hope on her, was almost beyond belief.
“Well,” Yanagisawa said, recovering his poise. “Now that we all know who and where the Dragon King is, I ask that Your Excellency allow me to lead my troops on an expedition to rescue Lady Keisho-in.”
“You’re too late again!” The shogun gleefully beheld Sano and Yanagisawa. “I’ve already sent out the army. They’re riding toward Izu at this moment.”
Now Sano’s amazement turned to horror. There was another reason he hadn’t wanted the army involved, aside from the fact that the Dragon King had threatened to kill the hostages if he were pursued.
Tokugawa soldiers were good at keeping order because their sheer numbers inspired fear among the public, and good at ganging up against troublemakers in the streets; but most of them had no battle experience. Their commanders had only commanded wars on the martial arts training ground. Sano didn’t trust the army with a mission that required superior fighting skill or strategy. When they got to Izu, they wouldn’t bother negotiating for the hostages’ freedom; they would simply overrun the island. Even if they vastly outnumbered the defense, the Black Lotus mercenaries could kill enough Tokugawa troops and stave off defeat long enough for Dannoshin to kill Lady Keisho-in, Lady Yanagisawa, Midori, and Reiko. There was only one way to prevent this calamity.
“I request Your Excellency’s permission to join the expedition to Izu,” Sano said.
“Myself, too,” Yanagisawa said, and Sano saw that he, too, understood that the shogun had jeopardized the hostages’ survival. Furthermore, Sano reckoned that the chamberlain still wanted to be the hero, as well as earn back their lord’s esteem.
“What for?” the shogun said with sly malice. “The army can, ahh, manage very well without you. Better that you should, ahh, stay here and attend to the duties you’ve, ahh, neglected lately. Sano-san, don’t you have crimes to investigate? And Yanagisawa-san, I’m getting tired of, ahh, ruling the country by myself. I could use your help.”