Shinju (41 page)

For him. Already.

Sano passed a trembling hand over his face. He had to plan his next move now. He couldn't afford to waste a moment of his precious freedom. But the noise from the street clamored at his aching head; desolation paralyzed his mind. The wounds on his shoulders throbbed, and blood plastered them to his clothing. Already the underlying muscles had swelled and stiffened; he couldn't turn his head or move his arms without pain. Fear had solidified in him like an iron skeleton. His whole body sagged with fatigue, and he'd never felt more alone. Shivering in his cloak, he reflected with amazement upon the changes that a few hours had wrought in his life.

Before finding O-hisa's body, he'd had a choice whether to continue pursuing Lord Niu. Now he had none. He couldn't turn his back on the events of the past fourteen days and go home. The
doshin
would be waiting for him there, no doubt with a small army of reinforcements to help carry him off to jail or kill him on the spot. Compared to this reality, the past disgrace he'd brought upon his family seemed insignificant.

He couldn't sink back into comfortable obscurity. As a fugitive, he would spend the rest of his days on the run while the whole country hunted him. Even if he'd possessed the cash to provision himself and Wada-
san
's horse for a journey, he knew that a flight to the provinces was futile. By now Magistrate Ogyu would have
dispatched messengers to the highway checkpoint guards and village headmen, warning them to be on the watch for him. His quest for vengeance had merged with the simpler, more powerful desire for survival.

From deep inside himself, Sano summoned what strength he had left, a small but brave force now reduced to the bare samurai steel his father's training had given him. He had no choice but to prove his innocence, or die in the attempt. Otherwise, his life was over anyway. If he remained a fugitive, everyone and everything he cared about—his family and friends and his honor—would be lost to him forever. To flee for his own life and let Lord Niu assassinate the shogun would be to fail in his ultimate duty to the highest lord of the land. The greatest disgrace of all. Sano's mouth twisted in a bitter smile. If getting help from the authorities had seemed difficult before, it was impossible now. Anyone he approached would have him arrested before he could finish one sentence.

The sound of footsteps jarred Sano out of his gloomy contemplation. He laid a steadying hand on the horse's neck and peered around the lattice screen. To his relief, he saw coming toward him not a
doshin
, but a man dressed in a gaudy purple-and-gold cloak and a strange flat cap. Obviously drunk, he zigzagged down the alley to the privies. Sano saw that his cap wasn't one at all, but a mask, pushed up on his head out of the way. Selecting the middle of the identical wooden sheds, the man stumbled inside.

The sight of the man's
Setsubun
costume roused Sano to action. A disguise was absolutely essential to the plan beginning to take shape in his mind. Mounting his horse, he walked it over to the privies and waited.

The drunk staggered out of the privy. With two swipes, Sano plucked the mask off his head and tore the cloak from his shoulders.

“Hey, what—” The man spun around and fell on his buttocks.

Sano kicked the horse's sides as he stuffed the cloak under his arm and fastened the mask over his own face. It was, he saw, an armored face shield that must have once belonged to a general or other high-ranking officer. Made of black metal, it had slits cut out for the eyes and mouth, and a bristly black horsehair mustache.

“Filthy samurai!” the drunk bawled at him, shaking a fist. “Think you can just take whatever you want!”

Now doubly a thief, Sano started to gallop away with his stolen goods. How ironic that in his crusade to catch a criminal, he'd become one himself! Then he turned back. Taking some coins from his pouch, he threw them at the drunk. They clinked and scattered across the ground.

“Have these as payment,” he called. He might die at any moment, and he didn't want his last act to be one of thievery, no matter how necessary. Besides, there was no use hoarding money now. If he survived this night—if his plan succeeded—he could earn more somehow. If not, then what little cash he carried wouldn't even pay for his funeral. Now he wished he'd thought to pay Wada-
san
for the horse that he might never return.

He swung the horse about and headed for the street. At the end of the alley he slowed to don the purple cloak printed with gold peonies. His long sword made an awkward bulge in it, and he hoped no one would notice and wonder why a samurai hid his weapons.

Out in the streets, the crowd swirled around him. Masked faces leered: dragons, monkeys, demons, tigers. Troupes of wandering musicians played drums, flutes, and clappers. A shower of pellets rained down on Sano as he passed a house where a group of women stood on the roof.

“Devils out! Fortune in!” they chanted, throwing roasted soybeans into the street for good luck.

Sano headed southwest out of Nihonbashi toward the daimyo district. With part of his attention, he watched for the
doshin
; with
the rest, he concentrated on making his way without trampling anyone, and on searching the blocks of buildings for the one he wanted.

At the torii gate of a Shinto shrine located between two shops, he dismounted and secured his horse. He walked through the shrine's precinct, where the neighborhood's residents flocked around stalls that sold snacks and
amazake
, the sweet, gingery fermented New Year's rice brew. The inner gates bore a long, looping rope of twisted rice straw, denoting the sacred space, strands of plaited white paper, and ferns. Outside the small, thatch-roofed shrine festooned with pine and bamboo and draped with white banners printed with the Tokugawa crest, he paused at the stone water basin to rinse his lips. He dropped a coin into the offering box, pulled the rope to sound the gong, and clapped his hands twice in prayer. Then, after leaving his shoes beside others that stood outside the door, he went into the shrine.

As he looked for the priest, he saw a family—father, mother, and two children—standing before the altar. The mother was unwrapping a package of cakes to leave as an offering to the stone image of the harvest goddess Inari.

“We do this so that she will bless us with good luck in the New Year,” the father explained to the children.

With his own chances for good fortune almost nonexistent, Sano felt very remote from them, as if an invisible screen separated him from the everyday world.

“Come, why so sad? Holidays are for celebrating.”

Sano turned to see the priest standing beside him, an old man with a face like a dried apple. He wore a cylindrical black hat on his bald head, and a deep purple robe over his white kimono. Wrinkles creased the skin around his eyes and mouth when he smiled.

“Are you troubled?” he asked. His expression turned serious with compassion. “Is there some way in which I can help you?”

No one could help him. He was alone in his trouble. But he'd
come to ask the priest for a small service that might help those who cared about him.

“Yes,” he said. “Might I have a brush, some ink, and a piece of paper? And a place where I can sit and write?”

If the priest thought this request odd, or thought it strange that Sano didn't remove his mask, he gave no sign. He merely motioned for Sano to follow him outside, to a shed at the rear of the shrine precinct. There, in a small room that served as storeroom, kitchen, and office, he arranged writing materials on a desk. He nodded to Sano and withdrew.

Sano took off his mask so that he could see in the dim shed. He ground the ink, mixed it with water, and dipped his brush.

he wrote, regretting that his need for haste allowed him no time for the formal expressions of respect with which he would normally begin a letter to his parents.

Sano read over his ill-composed message, hoping that it would give his parents some measure of comfort, or at least explain his actions to them. He blotted the ink dry, folded and sealed the letter. He wrote his parents' full names and the directions to their house on it. Then he donned his mask and went outside, where he found the priest waiting.

“Will you please see that this message is delivered today?” he asked. He handed it to the priest, along with the rest of his money. “It's very important.”

The priest frowned as he nodded and took the letter, though not out of offense at a stranger's imposition. He seemed to have accepted the gravity of Sano's predicament without question, as his next words proved:

“Is there no turning back from this dangerous course of action upon which you have decided?”

Sano looked away from the priest, toward the shrine's outer precinct, where a troupe of amateur actors had set up a makeshift stage. The hero, dressed as a samurai, was singing a lament about a son killed in battle. An appreciative audience cheered his anguished cries and posturings.

“No,” Sano said. His destiny was laid out for him, just as that of the characters in the play. “I cannot turn back.”

W
hen Sano arrived in Edo's daimyo district just after nightfall, he discovered that the wide boulevards had undergone a dramatic transformation. Here, as in Nihonbashi,
Setsubun
had worked its magic, although to a more glamorous effect. Round lanterns hung on the walls of each estate, their orange glow warming the cold night. Gates stood open to receive processions of lavishly decorated palanquins accompanied by multitudes of attendants. Samurai, dressed either in their finest silk robes, or garishly costumed as children or warrior women or legendary heroes, rode or strolled, calling boisterous greetings to one another. Somewhere a bonfire burned, sending up wood smoke to mix with the cloying scents of perfume and hair oil. Jugglers, actors, and musicians performed with gusto, hoping to wring a few coins from the rich; beggars shouted pleas; monks sold charms guaranteeing good luck in the coming year.

Still disguised in his cloak and mask, Sano rode up to the Niu
yashiki
at a gallop. His heart hammered a rapid, urgent cadence in time to the hoofbeats: hurry, hurry, hurry! He must find a way into the estate and get the scroll tonight, when his costume let him move freely among the crowds of other gaudily dressed men, while
Setsubun
's activity and confusion distracted the police. Fear and excitement sent flares of alarm through his body. This was his
only chance to stop Lord Niu and exonerate himself. He must succeed.

He'd had plenty of time to foresee the difficulties his plan presented. The first, that of breaking into the heavily guarded estate, had seemed insurmountable. Now, however, he noted that security in the district was unusually lax. Most of the guards had left their posts to mingle with the crowds, sometimes straying far from the gates they were supposed to protect. Laughter and song issued from the barracks just inside the walls: The lords' retainers were celebrating, not standing watch. This was a holiday in peacetime; no one expected an attack. Maybe he had a chance after all. But when he reached the gate, what he saw there made him jerk the reins so hard that his horse reared. Fresh anxiety shot through him.

Deep in conversation with the guards was the
doshin
who had almost arrested him at the canal. Nearby stood another
doshin
and five assistants. Weapons in hand, eyes narrow with suspicion, they watched the crowds.

Sano forced himself to ride nonchalantly past the police. His skin prickled under their sweeping gazes, but to cut and run would only focus their attention on him. Dread strained his nerves almost to the breaking point and set up a deep tremor in his cold, aching muscles. His wounds, feverish now, throbbed harder. He breathed deeply through the mouth slit of his mask. His body relaxed a little, only to tighten again when he heard a shout close behind him. The man who'd given it ran past him, but Sano's uneasiness persisted.