Reiko looked around for Masahiro and Sano, in vain. Hearing her name called, she saw Detectives Marume and Fukida weave through the mob toward her. She greeted them eagerly. “What’s happened?”
“Kajikawa is trapped in the shogun’s private chambers,” Fukida said.
Marume’s usually cheerful face was grave. “He’s threatening to kill the shogun.”
Reiko clutched her throat. “He wouldn’t, would he?”
“He’s already killed Ihara from the Council of Elders,” Fukida said.
“Or rather, he forced one of the guards to kill Ihara while he held the shogun at swordpoint,” Marume said. “He ordered us to clear the palace or the shogun dies.”
The news was so disastrous that Reiko could hardly take it in. Fukida said, “There’s been no communication from Kajikawa since. So we don’t know what else has happened.”
“Where’s my husband?” Reiko asked anxiously. “Where’s Masahiro?”
“With Kajikawa and the shogun,” Marume said. “And Yanagisawa, Yoritomo, and a bunch of boys and servants.”
Reiko’s blood went as cold as the ice that filmed the castle. She began to shake with terror. She trusted Sano to take care of himself, but her child was trapped in a volatile situation where at least one person had already been murdered. And they’d parted on bad terms, barely speaking to each other. “Can’t you do something?”
Marume gestured toward the guards. “They won’t let anybody in.”
Reiko gazed at the army, powerless against one fugitive.
“You should go home, Lady Reiko,” Fukida said. “It’s cold out here, and there’s nothing you can do.”
But something might happen, and Reiko wanted to be among the first to know. When Marume and Fukida turned to speak with some other men, she edged around the crowd, circling the palace. Nothing was visible except shuttered windows and blank walls. Reiko mingled with a crowd of women and girls, the shogun’s relatives and concubines and their attendants. They chattered and fretted. They didn’t notice Reiko sidling toward the building. Neither did the guards. As she swept her gaze over the palace, desperate for a hint of what was going on inside, she saw a gap in the latticework that covered the space under the palace. She hesitated, fighting temptation. Maternal instinct outweighed the risk. Reiko dropped to her knees and scuttled through the gap.
* * *
Blood welled from the thin line that Kajikawa’s blade cut on the shogun’s neck. The shogun squealed like the pigs butchered at the wild game market. His eyes bulged so wide that the white rims showed all the way around his pupils. His mouth opened so far that Sano could see down his pinkish-gray gullet. His arms and legs shot out in an involuntary spasm. Sano was astounded as well as horrified.
The shogun’s blood was red like everyone else’s! Sano had been conditioned to think of the shogun as a sort of god, even though he knew the shogun’s human failings all too well. The shogun, although weak and sickly, had been such a constant, dominating force in Sano’s life that Sano was shocked to realize he was mortal.
The shogun touched his neck. He lifted his trembling hand in front of his face and saw the blood on his fingers. His breath sucked inward so fast that he choked. His complexion turned ghastly white. Groans poured from the other people in the room.
Kajikawa posed by the shogun, his sword still holding the shogun captive. His features wavered between a grin like a skull’s rictus and an upside-down smile of tragic woe. He resembled an actor who’d thought he was the hero in the play and has just discovered he’s the villain.
The shogun began to shake violently. He pressed himself against the platform as if he could sink through it and escape the blade that verged on slicing through his windpipe. He screamed, “Help!”
“This is blasphemy!” Yanagisawa exclaimed.
Kajikawa pointed at Yanagisawa and said, “That’s enough from you!” His head bobbled at Yoritomo. “Gag him!”
Yoritomo stared in fresh shock. “What?”
“Take off your sash,” Kajikawa ordered Yanagisawa. When Yanagisawa and Yoritomo started to protest, he said, “Or I’ll finish off the shogun!”
The shogun began shrieking hysterically. He drummed his heels on the platform. Infuriated but cowed, Yanagisawa stripped off his sash, threw it to Yoritomo, and knelt.
“I’m sorry, Father.” Yoritomo’s voice quavered as if he were about to cry. He tied the sash around Yanagisawa’s mouth.
Yanagisawa glared above the red and black cloth that muffled his tongue, that separated his lips and teeth. Sano didn’t dare say a word, lest he be gagged and lose his speech, too. The other people in the room were silent while the shogun shrieked.
“Tie his hands and feet, too,” Kajikawa said. “With your own sash.”
His breath puffed and sweat glistened on his forehead, but he was calmer now. Sano wondered what on earth he thought could possibly save him. Yanagisawa extended his legs and hands. Yoritomo bound Yanagisawa’s ankles.
“Tie his hands behind his back,” Kajikawa instructed.
Until he knew what Kajikawa had planned, Sano couldn’t formulate a counterstrategy. Yanagisawa lay on his side on the platform while Yoritomo tied his hands. The sash connected them to his trussed ankles. Sano waited despite a fever of suspense that was almost as unbearable as the shogun’s screams. He braced himself with the thought that when the moment came for him to act, this was one time when Yanagisawa wouldn’t be able to interfere.
“While you’re at it, tie everybody else up,” Kajikawa said.
As Yoritomo trussed the servants and boys, he looked furious as well as despondent without his father to guide him. When he reached Sano, he tied the knots with vicious yanks, cruelly tight.
“Loosen them,” Sano whispered. “So I can save the shogun.”
Yoritomo uttered a breathy, scornful laugh. “Big talk.”
He pulled the sash so tight between Sano’s ankles and wrists that Sano’s spine curved backward. Sano stifled a cry. He watched in helpless fury while Yoritomo tied up Masahiro, who bravely endured his pain. When Yoritomo was done, the scene resembled a tuna auction. Bodies lay scattered on the floor, as immobile as dead fish for sale. Mouths were open as if gasping last breaths. Sano couldn’t bear to look at Masahiro and see his son’s gaze begging him to do something. The time wasn’t right.
Maybe it never would be.
Kajikawa withdrew his sword from the shogun and said, “Get up.”
The shogun’s screams dwindled into a whimper. He tried to rise, but he shook so hard that he fell back on the platform. “I can’t,” he wailed.
“Get up.” Kajikawa jabbed the point of his sword at the shogun’s nose.
Cross-eyed as he gazed at the blade, the shogun levered himself up on his elbows and got his feet under him. Knees wobbling and arms windmilling, soiled with vomit, he looked like a drunk thrown out of a teahouse. Kajikawa caught him from behind, locking his left arm across the shogun’s chest.
“We’re going to walk out of the palace.” He held his blade against the shogun’s blood-smeared throat.
Kajikawa planned to use the shogun as a hostage and ensure his passage to freedom. Sano thought of everything that could go wrong and end up with the shogun killed. But he saw a glimmer of light, the opportunity he’d been waiting for.
Kajikawa propelled the shogun off the platform. The shogun whimpered and stumbled, his legs as limp as noodles. Kajikawa held him up and urged him toward Yoritomo, who stood beside his trussed, gagged, and fuming father. Yoritomo wrung his hands. His chin trembled.