The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria (20 page)

“Open up!” they shouted. “By orders of the shogun’s
sōsakan-sama
, come outside and show yourselves!”

Men, women, and children, dressed in their nightclothes, poured into the street. They shivered with cold and fright. The neighborhood headman herded them into a line. He and the captain of Sano’s search team walked down the line, matching each person to a name on the official neighborhood roster, looking for unlisted women. Soldiers raided the buildings in search of anyone hidden there. They burst into a gambling den, interrupting card games and hustling the gamblers outside.

The commotion roused Lady Wisteria and Lightning from their slumber in the back room of the gambling den. Lightning threw off the quilt that covered them and leapt upright, fully alert, while Wisteria lay in groggy confusion.

“What is it?” she mumbled.

“Get up,” Lightning ordered in a hoarse whisper. “Those are soldiers out there. We have to go.”

Terror jolted Wisteria awake, for she understood that the soldiers had come for her. Lightning grabbed her hand, yanking her to her feet.

“Hurry!” he urged.

Wisteria was glad they’d slept in their clothes in case of an emergency. While she scrambled for her shoes, he snatched up her bundle of possessions. He hurried her outside to the alley, just as the soldiers rushed through the curtained doorway between the gambling den and their room.

The bitter cold immediately chilled Wisteria. Her cloak billowed open in the wind, but she had no time to fasten it. Lightning raced along the alley, towing her by the hand. She tripped and fell, emitting a shriek of dismay.

“Quiet!” Lightning whispered furiously.

His speed kept her moving. Her knees scraped painfully against the rough ground until she regained her footing. They veered into another alley, then stumbled through the ruins of a burned house. Wisteria could no longer hear the soldiers, but still Lightning dragged her onward. A thick crescent moon above the roofs illuminated their way along a route that he followed with the ease of an animal that knows its territory.

They clambered down the bank of a narrow canal, and as they plunged waist-deep through frigid water, the muddy bottom tugged off Wisteria’s shoes. Barefoot because courtesans never wore socks, she limped up the opposite bank. Stones and debris hurt her feet. She and Lightning ran through a maze of more dark alleys that stank from privies, garbage, and night soil bins. Wisteria was freezing, her wet garments clinging to her like a coat of ice. Her heart pounded; gasps heaved her chest. But Lightning wasn’t even breathing hard. His hand around hers was warm. Would they keep running until she died?

At last Lightning halted at a building. Wisteria squatted, breathless and limp with exhaustion. Barred windows flanked a door. Lightning knocked: two slow beats, a pause, then three quick ones. The door opened a crack, and light shone into the alley. A man’s face, thuggish and unshaven, appeared in the crack. The man eyed Lightning, then opened the door. As Lightning pulled Wisteria into a passage with an earth floor and bare rafters, she saw that the man held a dagger; tattoos on his arms marked him as a gangster. But Wisteria was too glad for sanctuary to care that she recognized this place and knew its evils.

“Have the soldiers searched this neighborhood yet?” Lightning asked the man.

The man shook his head. Lightning muttered a curse, and Wisteria feared they must go back out in the night. But Lightning took her down the corridor, past rooms enclosed by partitions. Lamplight shining through the tattered paper silhouetted pairs of embracing, writhing human figures. Wisteria heard moans and grunts; she smelled urine, sweat, and sex. As she and Lightning entered a room where a torn lantern hung above a floor made of wood slats that bordered a large, round, sunken tub of water, Wisteria wanted to laugh and cry. This place was a public bath that doubled as an illegal brothel. She’d escaped one whorehouse, only to take shelter in another.

But Wisteria was so cold that she trembled uncontrollably, her teeth chattering. The steaming water in the tub seemed like a vision of heaven. Lightning had already begun shedding his wet, filthy garments. Wisteria tore off hers as fast as her shaking hands could manage, but kept the cloth around her head. Her battered feet left bloody spots on the floor. She and Lightning scrubbed themselves with bags of soap, poured buckets of water over their bodies, then sat in the tub, immersed up to their shoulders.

The hot water engulfed Wisteria; she sighed in bliss. She ignored the scum floating on the water and the room’s odor of mildew. Too overwhelmed by relief and fatigue to care what happened next, Wisteria closed her eyes, leaned back against the rim of the tub, and drowsed.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” Lightning said. “We can’t stay. The soldiers will come eventually. We’ll have to leave before then.”

“Please, let’s wait just a little while longer,” Wisteria murmured.

Lightning shifted restlessly; the water bobbed. “No place in Edo is safe. We should have taken to the highway this morning, like I wanted to. But no—you wanted to stay.”

His accusing tone set off a warning signal in Wisteria’s head and jarred her out of a doze. She saw the malevolent gleam in Lightning’s eyes, which shifted rapidly as he stared at her.

“Because of you, we’re being hunted like animals,” he said. “Because of you, we may not live to enjoy your freedom.”

Wisteria sat up straight, clasping her knees to her chest. “But we have to stay,” she said, needing to justify herself, though fearful of defying him. “That was part of the plan.”

“Your plan. Not mine. I was a fool to agree to it.” Lightning snorted in derision. “Why should we care what happens about the murder? We’ll leave tonight.”

“I care. I have to know,” Wisteria said. “We can’t go yet!”

Earlier today, Lightning had fetched her a news broadsheet containing a story about the
sōsakan-sama’
s investigation. She’d read that her
yarite
had been arrested. She needed to find out what happened to Momoko, and whether other people became implicated in the crime. And she might never hear the news in the distant province where she and Lightning planned to settle. She must watch events unfold—in spite of the danger.

Ire darkened Lightning’s face. “Is satisfying your curiosity more important to you than my life?”

“No! Of course not!” Wisteria squirmed away, but her back struck the wall of the tub.

A bitter laugh burst from him. “I should have known. You’re just using me. You don’t really care about me.”

“But I do care,” Wisteria said. Under the water she reached for him, and her hand found his leg. It flinched at her touch. “I love you.” If this intense, fearful attraction equaled love, then she did love Lightning. “Your safety is more important to me than my own.” Because without him, she couldn’t survive.

He shook his head, spurning persuasion. But as she coiled her hand around his manhood and stroked him, she felt him swell and harden. Arousal parted his lips and arched his neck.

“If you love me, you wouldn’t have gotten me into all this trouble,” Lightning said, his voice harshened by desire and anger at her attempt to manipulate him.

Disbelief startled Wisteria. She withdrew her hand.
“I
got
you
in trouble?” Indignant, she forgot caution. “Excuse me, but I’m not the reason we’re being hunted. I’m not the one who almost ruined everything for us.”

“Oh, so you’re blaming me?”

The water sloshed as Lightning moved toward her. “Well, let me remind you that it was your plan that started everything.”

“My plan would have worked fine if you’d stuck to it.” Wisteria felt his hand close around her ankle, and she pulled back in alarm. “Let me go.”

“You don’t tell me what to do,” he said, holding tight. As she tried to kick loose from him, his breaths came faster and harder. “I make my own decisions. I’m not your servant. I don’t have to listen to you or anyone else.”

Now Wisteria’s own temper sparked. The water seemed to grow hotter; sweat trickled down her face. “You should listen,” she cried. “Because this time you made a terrible mistake. Our problems are all your fault.”

“Our problem is that you got carried away by anger,” Lightning said. “Your grudges will be the death of us.”

There was truth in what he said, Wisteria knew. The same outrage and self-righteousness that had inspired her plan was surging through her now. The bitter animosity that filled her heart now focused on Lightning.

She shrilled, “What about your grudges? Anyone who offends you had better watch out, because you don’t think before you act. You’re like a wild beast with no sense!”

“What did you call me?” His face distorted, teeth bared in a snarl, and his nostrils flared, Lightning indeed looked more animal than human. “You think I’m stupid? You’re the one who’s stupid if you think I’ll let you insult me. I’ll show you who’s in charge around here.”

Lightning jerked on her ankle, pulling her underwater. Wisteria shrieked as her head submerged. The hot water burned her eyes, filled her nose, gurgled in her mouth. She flailed her arms, fighting to raise herself above the surface, but he had hold of both her legs now, and he was too strong for her. Desperate, Wisteria writhed. Her body smacked against the hard bottom of the tub. She resisted the terrible urge to take a breath. Then Lightning let go. She burst up into the steamy air, gulping for breath. Rivulets streamed off her drenched head-cloth and over her face. In her blurred vision, Lightning loomed huge and monstrous.

“Apologize for what you said!” he commanded.

“No!” Wisteria was too incensed by his treatment of her. “You are a beast. I hate you!”

He planted his hands on her shoulders and shoved her downward. She strained against him while her neck, then her chin, sank beneath the water. “Somebody please help me!”

The noises from the couples in the brothel continued; no one answered her call. Forced below the surface, Wisteria clawed and kicked Lightning. Her heel found his groin, and she heard him yell, the sound distorted by the dark, turbulent water that surrounded her. His body heaved up, then crashed down upon her with a tremendous splash. His solid, muscular limbs imprisoned her. An airless vacuum trapped her screams in her throat and constricted her lungs. Her heart felt ready to explode. Panic filled Wisteria. Helpless, she tossed her head from side to side.

Lightning hauled her up from the water. Her head broke the surface and she inhaled a huge, gulping breath. Then he flung her out of the tub. Her right side hit the slatted floor. Pain jarred her elbow and hip. As she rolled, stunned and gasping, onto her back, Lightning straddled her. He shook her so that her head repeatedly bumped the floor.

“Are you sorry you insulted me?” he demanded.

“Yes!” Wisteria screamed, her defiance at last subdued by his brutality. “Please don’t hurt me!”

“Do you love me?”

“I love you!”

“From now on you’ll do as I say?”

“Yes!”

“Because if you don’t, I’ll kill you. Do you understand?”

And he would. Wisteria hadn’t fully appreciated his capacity for violence until now. “Yes. Yes!” she cried.

Climbing off her, Lightning stood. His wet, naked bulk heaved with his breaths. He grinned in cruel triumph.

“Next time I won’t forgive you so easily,” he said, then picked up his clothes and stalked out of the room.

Wisteria lay bruised and aching and shivering. How much she wished she’d never met Lightning! Whatever mistakes he had made, she’d made the most serious one—thinking she could handle him. Tears seeped from her closed eyes. The final stages of her plan required Lightning’s cooperation, but she had serious doubts about her ability to manipulate him anymore. If she couldn’t, what would she do?

She knew now that in spite of her passion for Lightning, they couldn’t live together. She must get away from him before they disagreed again and he made good on his threat.

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