The Fire Kimono (36 page)

Sano was glad that his measure of the bond between father and son had proved correct. Danger to Yoritomo was the only bait that could have lured Yanagisawa out of hiding. “Don’t think I wouldn’t have killed Yoritomo if you hadn’t come. Don’t think I still won’t.”

“Why should you?” Yanagisawa said. “It’s me that you want. Leave my son alone.”

“He’s a traitor,” Sano said, “and he deserves to die even though he’s just your accomplice in your conspiracy to regain power.”

Shock appeared on the faces of the men around Sano as they realized the true nature of Yoritomo’s crimes and the fact that Yanagisawa had been busy mounting his comeback.

“You won’t kill him.” Yanagisawa’s controlled manner didn’t hide his anxiety. He said to the executioner’s assistants, “Dig him up.”

“Proceed with the nokogiri-biki,” Sano countermanded.

The executioner stepped forward. While the assistants held Yoritomo’s head and the executioner brandished the saw, the townspeople whispered excitedly. Sano saw spines stiffen and throat muscles clench among his samurai companions, and naked horror on Yanagisawa’s face.

“Don’t!”

Yanagisawa spurred his horse forward, between Yoritomo and the executioner. His men moved after him. Sano, Marume, and Fukida advanced with their troops. Sano said, “Back off. You’re outnumbered. If you try to take Yoritomo, you’ll both be killed in the battle.”

Yanagisawa stared at Sano with fury and hatred. “You don’t need my son. You’ve exposed me. Isn’t that enough?”

“Not nearly,” Sano said.

“Then what in hell do you want?”

“I want you to answer a few questions.”

Suspicion narrowed Yanagisawa’s eyes. “About what?”

“That’s for me to decide,” Sano said. “Agree now, or I proceed with the execution.”

The Tokugawa officials and the daimyo whispered in speculation. The townsfolk moved closer to hear what was going on. Yanagisawa hesitated, sensing a trap within the trap.

“Dear me, Sano-san, you’re not really going to kill him?” the shogun piped up fretfully. “When I agreed to go along with whatever you did, I didn’t, ahh, realize you would go so far.”

“All right,” Yanagisawa said in a voice that promised Sano retribution. “What do you want to know?”

“Were you responsible for the bombing of Lord Matsudaira’s estate?” Sano asked.

Yanagisawa gleamed with sardonic satisfaction. “Oh, you finally figured that out? Congratulations.”

“So you have agents who followed your orders to throw the firebomb?” Sano said, hammering in the point in case anyone had missed it.

“Well, yes,” Yanagisawa said. “I couldn’t exactly stroll up to the castle gate, give my name, and say, ‘I’m here to bomb Lord Matsudaira’s estate. Let me in.’”

On the periphery of the execution ground, two mounted samurai edged toward the road. Sano called, “If you’re planning to run to Lord Matsudaira and break the news, don’t leave yet. He’ll want to hear the rest.”

The horsemen halted. Sano said to Yanagisawa, “Were you also responsible for ambushing my wife?”

“Guilty as charged.” Yanagisawa glanced at Yoritomo. His flippant manner didn’t hide his growing panic.

“What about the previous attacks, on Lord Matsudaira’s troops and mine?” Sano asked. “Were they your doing, too?”

“You should thank me,” Yanagisawa retorted. “I did for you and Lord Matsudaira what you both wanted to do to each other but were too cowardly to risk.”

“So you sent your underground rebels in disguise to attack us and goad us into a war. Neither of us is to blame.”

“It’s about time you gave credit where credit is due.”

Sano addressed the two waiting horsemen: “You can go now.” As they galloped away, Sano hoped they would reach Lord Matsudaira before his assassins struck again.

“Are we finished with these questions?” Yanagisawa said.

Whether Lord Matsudaira would believe Yanagisawa’s confession, let go of his hostility toward Sano, and call off his dogs was beyond Sano’s control. Sano concentrated on wringing the maximum value out of Yanagisawa. “Far from it. Let’s talk about an actor by the name of Arashi Kodenji. Do you know him?”

Yanagisawa’s expression turned wary: He knew the conversation was headed into dangerous territory. He looked at Yoritomo, buried up to the neck in the dirt, his head covered, as vulnerable as a swaddled baby. “Yes.”

“For everyone’s information, Arashi is the man we knew as Egen, tutor to the shogun’s murdered cousin,” Sano announced. “But he was only acting the role.”

Confusion rumbled among both audiences. Sano’s colleagues hadn’t heard the news, and the townsfolk weren’t familiar with the story behind this drama. Sano said, “Did you hire Arashi to impersonate the tutor and slander my mother?”

“Yes, and you fell for it.” Yanagisawa couldn’t resist enjoying his own cleverness and Sano’s gullibility. “I’d have given a lot to be there.”

“You didn’t need to be there. You had eyes and ears inside the castle,” Sano said, pointing at Yoritomo. “Did you kill Arashi after you paid him off?”

The audience stirred with consternation and excitement as Sano’s colleagues realized that Yanagisawa had interfered with matters besides the conflict between Sano and Lord Matsudaira. Even the townsfolk realized that Sano was forcing Yanagisawa to put himself in jeopardy.

“Arashi was supposed to leave town as soon as he’d testified against your mother.” A tremor in his voice betrayed how frantic Yanagisawa was to save Yoritomo. “Instead, he hung around, and he couldn’t keep his big mouth shut. Sooner or later he’d have told someone I’d hired him. He’d have spread the word that I was back from exile. He had to go.”

“I take it that means yes, you ordered his death,” Sano said.

Yanagisawa hastily added, “He was a peasant, a nobody. What does it matter?”

A samurai had the legal right to kill a peasant. “It matters that you interfered with a murder investigation ordered by His Excellency, and this particular peasant was a key witness.” Sano turned to the shogun. “Yanagisawa told Lord Arima to arrange the murder. Lord Arima recruited two of my soldiers and sent them to do Yanagisawa’s dirty work. They killed Arashi, but on his orders, not mine. His confession is the proof of my innocence.”

“Yes, I see,” the shogun said, trying to sound as if he did. “Chamberlain Sano, excuse me for suspecting you. Consider the accusation against you, ahh, dropped.”

“How nice for you,” Yanagisawa said spitefully to Sano. “Enough already! Free my son!”

“One more question,” Sano said. “Was it your troops, and not Lord Matsudaira’s, who attacked His Excellency’s yesterday?”

Yanagisawa’s face went livid with anger and fright because Sano had named the final price for his son’s freedom: He must admit to the attack, which constituted treason. He said, “I most certainly did not.”

“Tell the truth, or your son dies,” Sano said. “You ordered Lord Arima to tell His Excellency that his cousin wanted to overthrow him. You sent your troops after his, wearing Lord Matsudaira’s crest. You wanted His Excellency to go to war with Lord Matsudaira and crush him. It was all part of your plan.”

“You’re dreaming,” Yanagisawa said contemptuously.

Sano shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He nodded to the executioner, who applied the saw to Yoritomo’s neck. “Here we go.”

“No!” squealed the shogun.

“Stop!” Yanagisawa charged at the executioner.

The executioner dodged. Yanagisawa’s troops galloped around the pit, scattering the assistants. Sano, the detectives, and their troops rushed Yanagisawa, swords drawn. The fray swirled around Yoritomo’s head like a storm circling its eye. Sano and his forces drove Yanagisawa away from Yoritomo. With an outraged cry, Yanagisawa rode at the townsfolk. He jumped off his horse and caught a little girl. He drew his sword, held it against her throat, and shouted, “Let Yoritomo go, or she’s dead!”

Sano stared in horror. The girl was perhaps six years old, with round cheeks, hair tied in two ponytails, chubby in her padded blue kimono. Helpless in Yanagisawa’s grasp, she cried, “Mama, Mama!”

Her parents begged Yanagisawa to let her go. The crowd around them agitated because the drama had suddenly turned too real. Sano couldn’t sacrifice an innocent child, and Yanagisawa knew it, just as Sano had known Yanagisawa would come to rescue his son. They were aware of each other’s weaknesses after their many years as sometimes rivals, sometimes comrades.

Yanagisawa bared his teeth in a fierce smile. “Her life in exchange for Yoritomo’s.”

“All right.” Sano dismounted beside Yoritomo’s head, beckoned to Yanagisawa, and said, “Put her down, and I’ll call off the execution.”

Gripping his terrified little hostage, Yanagisawa walked toward Sano. Their troops and the spectators moved back in a wide circle around them. “That’s not all I want,” Yanagisawa said. “I want a safe passage out of here for Yoritomo and me. I want your promise that you won’t touch us.”

“I promise,” Sano said.

Grumbles from the samurai in the audience said they deplored Sano’s caving in. Sano nodded to the executioner’s assistants. They took up their shovels.

Yanagisawa’s lip curled with contempt. “If you were any other man, I wouldn’t trust your promise, Sano-san. But your honor has always been your downfall and my blessing.”

He flung the girl away from him. As her parents rushed up and carried her to safety, he hastened toward Yoritomo.

“Not this time,” Sano said.

He gripped his sword in both hands, swung it up, and brought it down in a vicious arc. The blade struck Yoritomo’s neck, slicing through flesh and bone. Yoritomo’s head fell on the ground with a thud that drowned in the cries of astonishment that rose from the crowd.

“No!” Yanagisawa screamed.

His face was so twisted by rage and grief that he barely looked human. He fell on his knees beside Yoritomo’s head. Sano saw everyone including his own troops, except for his detectives, gazing at him in shock: They hadn’t thought him capable of what he’d done. Vengeful satisfaction filled Sano. Let Yanagisawa suffer the worst agony that a father who loved his son could. Let him pay the price for all the trouble he’d ever caused Sano, the political strife he’d fomented, the violence his actions had provoked.

As Yanagisawa cradled the head in his lap, sobbed, and tugged off the hood, the spectators’ expressions changed from shock to puzzlement. “There’s no blood,” someone said.

Blood hadn’t gushed from Yoritomo’s neck as it should have; none stained the ground. Sano’s sword was clean except for a dark smudge on the blade. Another cry rang from Yanagisawa as he beheld the head he’d uncovered.

“This isn’t my son!”

The head belonged to a man with cropped, bushy hair and missing teeth. His eyeballs were purplish and deflated like rotten berries, swarming with maggots. The neck of the body buried in the ground resembled a cut of old meat, shriveled and juiceless. The wind blew up a powerful stench of decayed flesh. The shogun turned away, doubled over, and retched.

Marume and Fukida grinned at Sano. They alone in the audience had known Sano’s whole plan. Sano had decided not to bring Yoritomo to the execution ground. He’d wanted to hold Yoritomo in reserve in case he needed further leverage against Yanagisawa. He and his detectives had obtained a body from Edo Morgue, dressed it in Yoritomo’s clothes, and covered its face with the hood. Sano had decapitated a corpse.

The assembly gasped, murmured, and exclaimed like a crowd awed by a magician. Yanagisawa hurled the head at Sano and leaped to his feet, his grief transformed into rage. “A curse on you for your blasted trickery!”

He lunged at Sano, drawing his sword. Sano’s troops rode into the circle to stop him, but Yanagisawa’s headed them off. Sano raised his blade and deflected Yanagisawa’s cut. The field erupted in riotous action. The commoners ran for their lives while Yanagisawa’s troops assailed Sano’s. The shogun staggered around, crying, “Help! Somebody save me!”

As he and Yanagisawa lashed at each other, Sano felt a bloodlust hotter than any he’d known in previous battles. It stemmed from their turbulent history together. And he felt the same heat, the same murderous intent, flaming from Yanagisawa.

“Where’s my son?” Yanagisawa demanded as he dodged Sano’s cuts. He pivoted, then struck and struck again, driving Sano backward into the battle that raged between their armies. “What have you done with him?”

“Yoritomo is alive,” Sano said as he parried, sliced, and forced Yanagisawa to retreat across the execution ground. He’d hidden the young man in his rice warehouse. “Surrender, and I’ll let you see him.”

But Sano hoped Yanagisawa wouldn’t surrender. He wanted to fight to the finish even though he’d intended to take Yanagisawa alive. His samurai heritage compelled him to conquer and kill.

Yanagisawa laughed with bitter scorn. “I won’t. Not after you’ve shown me what your promises are worth.”

As they fought, Sano experienced a strange sensation that the boundary between himself and Yanagisawa had dissolved. He knew every move that Yanagisawa was going to make. He parried by instinct; he effortlessly evaded strikes. This was what the martial arts masters called “oneness with the opponent,” the concept that a samurai and his adversary are partners in battle. Sano had always been skeptical about it, for how could he be partners with someone who was trying to kill him? But now Sano and Yanagisawa merged into one person. Their history fused with the mystical energy of warfare.