“Don’t let him get to you,” Oishi urged as Lord Asano practiced the ritual after the lessons, until late at night.
But the advice was easier given than followed, especially when Kira tormented Lord Asano in public. At a banquet in the palace, Oishi and Lord Asano heard Kira say, “There’s the country boor. They apparently don’t learn any manners in Harima Province.”
The other guests laughed. Lord Asano went pale with rage.
Eventually, he snapped.
* * *
“I can’t describe Lord Asano’s attack on Kira,” Oishi said. “I wasn’t there.”
While listening to Oishi’s story, Sano had found himself too caught up in it to judge it. Oishi had a talent for bringing characters to vivid life. Sano had experienced outrage at Kira’s behavior and sympathy toward Lord Asano. Which was what Oishi had intended, Sano realized now, as they sat together in Lord Hosokawa’s office.
“Your story offers a logical explanation for why Lord Asano attacked Kira and puts you in a good light,” Sano said. “But is it the true one?”
“It’s true,” Oishi said, unruffled by Sano’s skepticism.
Sano began to understand how Oishi had become the leader of the forty-seven ronin. Oishi was a powerful personality. Sano must take care to avoid falling under his thrall. “After the attack, why didn’t Lord Asano say what his quarrel with Kira was?”
“Put yourself in Lord Asano’s position. You were picked on by an old man; you were too weak to make him treat you with respect. Would you want everyone to know? Wouldn’t you rather take it to your grave?”
“That’s a good point.”
“Besides, Lord Asano knew that explaining why he attacked Kira wouldn’t have saved him. He drew a weapon inside Edo Castle. He was going to die. Telling shameful tales on himself wouldn’t have made any difference.”
“It might have made one very important difference,” Sano said. “Kira might have been punished for starting a feud with Lord Asano.”
“Kira was punished.” Triumph resounded in Oishi’s harsh voice. “Lord Asano knew he could depend on me to see that the bastard got his comeuppance.”
“But you took almost two years to do it.” This was another issue that Sano wanted to resolve, in case it had any bearing on the truth about the murder and relevance to the supreme court’s verdict. “Why did you wait so long?”
“I’m getting to that.” Memory coalesced in his eyes, like a flock of ravens gathering around carrion, as Oishi began the next episode in his story.
11
1701 April
Lanterns glowed in a courtyard, around a square of straw mats covered with a white rug. Lord Asano knelt on the rug, dressed in a white silk robe. A table before him held a short sword on a stand and a scroll bearing the poem he’d written. His youthful face was rigid with terror, misery, and his effort to withhold an unseemly display of emotions. Oishi stood behind Lord Asano, concealing his own anguish behind a grim expression, his sword drawn. Along the courtyard, government officials stood silent under the unearthly radiance of blossoming cherry trees. Petals fell like pink snow, symbols of life’s transience.
Lord Asano opened his robe with hands that shook violently. His ragged breathing was the only sound in the cool, quiet night. As Oishi looked down at Lord Asano, he wasn’t sure he could perform his part in the ritual. But it would be his last service for his beloved lord, and perform it he must. Hoping that Lord Asano’s last words would give him strength, Oishi glanced at the poem.
More than the cherry blossoms,
Inviting a wind to blow them away,
I am wondering what to do
With the remaining springtime.
Tears almost blinded Oishi. That his master wouldn’t live to see the rest of the spring! Justice had been meted out with terrible efficiency. This morning Lord Asano had drawn a sword inside Edo Castle. This afternoon the shogun had ruled that Lord Asano must die tonight.
Lord Asano reached for the sword. He grasped the hilt in both hands, the weapon pointed at his abdomen. The blade wavered. Straining to hold it still, he looked up at Oishi.
A memory seized Oishi. In the Asano clan stronghold of Ako Castle, the previous Lord Asano lay dying. His family and top retainers watched him draw his last breath. Oishi looked across the bed at Lord Asano’s son, the eight-year-old boy who had just become daimyo. The boy turned solemn, frightened, pleading eyes on Oishi, his special friend among his father’s men. Oishi nodded, telling the new Lord Asano that he would be there to guide him and protect him for his whole life. I will do right by you. And Lord Asano nodded, reassured.
Twenty-two years later, Oishi saw the same pleading in Lord Asano’s eyes. Love and heartache flooded Oishi. He nodded. Lord Asano nodded, turned away, and sat straighter. Uttering a loud cry, he thrust the blade into his gut.
Oishi beheaded Lord Asano before he could feel any pain. Blood spattered the poem. The audience gasped. Cherry blossoms fell. Oishi gazed down at the corpse of his master, and rage burned through his grief. He silently vowed, I will do right by you.
By the next month, the government had dissolved the house of Asano, officially wiping the clan out of existence. Family members huddled inside Ako Castle while Oishi and the thousands of other retainers massed atop the walls and watched troops marching toward the castle. The men clamored in outrage: “We’ll fight!”
“Don’t be fools!” Oishi shouted. “There are too many of them! We’ll be slaughtered! We must live to avenge Lord Asano!”
Although the men grumbled, they allowed Oishi to herd them from the castle. They stood beside their horses, their possessions in the saddlebags. Oishi led out the Asano family, thankful that Lord Asano’s wife needn’t see this. She was in Edo, where the law forced daimyo wives to reside as hostages to their husbands’ good behavior. So were Oishi’s own wife and children. Oishi helped the Asano family into oxcarts piled with the few belongings they were allowed to keep. The women and children sobbed.
So did many retainers as they watched the army arrive. This was the worst day of their life, every samurai’s worst nightmare. Oishi couldn’t believe it was happening to him. He stared in mute shock as troops filed into the castle and filed out carrying furniture, trunks of money, and priceless heirlooms. No one in the Asano group could bear to watch, but everyone stayed until the next day, when the loot was borne off to Edo to be received by the shogun and the army was gone except for a platoon that occupied the castle. Then they faced the terrible moment they’d been dreading.
They were homeless, destitute. The retainers were ronin, stripped of honor, utterly humiliated. They turned to Oishi, even though he was no longer their superior.
“Where are we going to go?” they cried.
“To Edo,” Oishi said. “We have work to do there.”
But as the procession moved down the highway, it shrank. Some men stayed at teahouses in the villages to find comfort in drink and the arms of prostitutes. Some went off to seek their fortunes alone. Suicides drastically thinned the ranks. The procession left a string of graves in its wake. Oishi arrived in Edo with only a hundred men left. The government seized the Asano estate in Edo. Oishi put Lady Asano in a Buddhist convent and moved his family to lodgings in the Nihonbashi merchant quarter. Then he began a campaign to get the house of Asano reinstated. He wrote letters to government officials. He called in every favor. Nothing worked. His contacts said the shogun couldn’t change his mind because that would make him look weak, and he would never reinstate the house of Asano. They told Oishi to make the best of his new life as a commoner.