“I know. That’s what makes it so hard.”
“He and his friends haven’t yet done anything to hurt the regime.”
“Not yet,” Sano said grimly.
“Why should you care about protecting the regime?” Reiko said with a hint of her old fire. “Remember what the regime almost did to us. Look what the shogun did to your face.”
“It’s not about whether the shogun or the regime are worth protecting. It’s about honor.” Sano confessed, “I came close to throwing away mine, telling off the shogun like that.” But he was too ashamed to tell Reiko what else he meant, that he’d almost tried to kill the shogun. “I have to recommit to Bushido. That means not making allowances for a friend at the expense of my duty to my lord.”
One more step out of line and he wasn’t a true samurai anymore.
A sob at the door startled him. Midori stood there, her hand at her throat, her expression stricken. She’d overheard everything about Hirata. “I knew he was up to something bad. I just knew it!” She rushed into the room and fell on her knees before Sano. “He didn’t mean to be a traitor. It was a mistake! Please give him another chance!”
“I gave him many chances,” Sano said, distressed by her anguish yet bound to his duty. “He just used up the last one.”
“But what about his children? What about me?” Midori said, horrified by what she saw as Sano’s cruelty. “We’ve done nothing wrong. Are you going to put us to death, too?”
A traitor’s family shared his punishment. That was the law. Sano had avoided thinking about what would happen to Midori and the children when he prosecuted Hirata, but the issue was now as unavoidable as his course of action.
“I don’t have a choice.” Sano felt a despair more anguishing than he’d thought possible.
“I can’t believe this.” In a panic, Midori seized Reiko’s hand. “Talk to him,” she begged. “Make him change his mind!”
Reiko wilted, as if arguing was too much for her; she knew she couldn’t change Sano’s mind. She sank into deeper desolation. Sano could tell what she was thinking: First the baby was lost; now their beloved friends.
“Please!” Midori prostrated herself, her hands extended to Sano. “My husband saved your life. Our daughter saved your son’s.” Forsaking propriety, she called in the debts. “Have mercy!”
Sano wished with all the fervor in him that things could be different. If he’d dealt with Hirata’s misbehavior earlier, he might have headed off this calamity. If only his learning the truth about Hirata’s secret society hadn’t coincided with his own breakdown! If he’d had no lapse in honor to atone for, he might have been able to bend the law.
His wishes were in vain. Bushido and conscience pressured Sano to take the high, difficult road.
“I can’t.” At this moment Sano hated himself more than he’d ever hated Yanagisawa or the shogun. But he’d gone after Yanagisawa because he and Yoshisato were committing treason. He couldn’t look the other way for Hirata any more than he could let Ienobu inherit the regime after setting up two murders. “I have to treat Hirata like the criminal he is.”
* * *
Hirata opened eyes crusted with dried tears and blood. Flat on his back, he gazed up at a low ceiling studded with rocks. Haloes of light rimmed lanterns mounted on stands around him. Slow, raspy breaths filled his dry nostrils with the smell of dank earth and pungent chemicals. His body felt stiff and numb, his mind fogged with a sleep too heavy to be natural. A droning sound filled his ears. Hirata tried to sit up.
Tight cuffs around his wrists and ankles bound him to the padded surface on which he lay. Panic dispelled some of the sleep-fog. Hirata raised his head. He saw his torso and limbs encased in white cloth bandages stained with green ooze. On his left, a ceramic bottle hung upside down on a pole. The bottle had a long, thin metal tube inserted in its stopper. The tube’s other end was stuck in his arm and tied in place with string. The place seemed to be an underground cave. Tahara and Kitano bent over a hearth on which an iron pot simmered. Their lips moved. The sound was their voices chanting.
“Where am I?” His voice was a feeble croak.
Kitano continued chanting as he stirred the pot. Tahara came to stand over Hirata. “In a safe place where no one will bother us.” His unfriendly face was still bruised from the battle. Not much time had passed since then.
“What happened?” he asked.
“General Otani punished you,” Tahara answered.
“What are you doing to me?”
“Secret medical treatments and mystical healing spells. Your wounds are pretty bad.”
Still chanting, Kitano pushed a strange apparatus on wheels toward Hirata. It was a bellows connected by a metal tube to the neck of a large ceramic jar. Kitano fetched the pot from the hearth. His scarred face was covered with raw, stitched-up gashes from his fight with Deguchi. He poured the pot’s contents into the jar, corked it, and inserted another, thinner tube through the cork. Tahara connected the end of the thin tube to a leather mask, which he pressed over Hirata’s nose and mouth. Kitano pumped the bellows. Hirata moaned as steam laced with sweet chemicals invaded his lungs.
“Why…?” The mask muffled his voice. The fog of sleep thickened.
“Why are we healing you instead of letting you die?” Tahara said, his hostile voice echoing in the cave. “Because General Otani has further use for you.”
With his last waking thought Hirata wished he were dead. That was better than being saved in order that he could continue his treasonous collaboration with Tahara, Kitano, and the ghost. Worse trouble was coming. But a glint of hope eased his anguish, illuminated the noxious black sleep that overtook Hirata’s consciousness.
As long as he was alive, he had a chance to destroy his enemies, make amends to his family and Sano, and restore his honor.