Still he hesitated, remembering the guards' conversation, Lord Niu's impatience, and the banquet preparations. What other sinister happenings might they foreshadow? More revelations about Lord Niu's motives?

Sano crept through the woods until he could see the front of the house. Crouching inside a triangle of thick tree trunks, he watched. Soon he heard hoofbeats on the road outside the wall.

The gate opened to admit two mounted samurai who cantered up the torchlit path, dismounted, and vanished inside the main house. A few moments later, another pair came, then a lone man. Then more, always singly or in pairs. Soon twenty horses stood outside the door. Sano wished he could see into the house. This gathering must have some secret purpose; otherwise, Lord Niu could have held it in greater comfort and convenience at the yashiki.

A sudden movement on the left edge of his field of vision made Sano turn his head. Two spots of light had appeared at the side of the house near where he'd met O-hisa. They began moving toward him. In another moment, he saw the guards' bulky figures illuminated by the lanterns they carried. A needle of fear pierced his chest as their voices reached him: "The housekeeper said she heard a stranger's voice out here."

"Probably just imagining things, the stupid old hen."

"Can't take that chance."

A shrill whistle split the air. To Sano's dismay, one of the guards left the front entrance and hurried to meet the others. Twigs snapped as they converged on him. They were less than a hundred paces away.

Sano turned and ran, away from the house, into the dark woods. He tried to move silently, but he couldn't see where he was going. Invisible branches shot out to rasp against him; unseen puddles splashed under his feet.

"I think I hear something over there."

The guards came thrashing through the woods after him. An arrow sang past his ear to land in the ground somewhere beyond his sight. Another thunked into a tree he'd just pa.s.sed. Sano lunged for cover, falling flat on his belly. He lay still as the guards' footsteps stopped, then began to approach again, cautiously, stealthily. Fighting panic, he half-crawled, half-slithered over gra.s.s and mud. He bit back a cry as he tumbled down a short but steep incline. His hands and knees struck stony ground. Nearby a small brook gleamed faintly, reflecting starlight from patches of clear sky between the fleeing rain clouds. Then Sano found sanctuary in the form of a great dead tree stump that stood at the top of the incline. Its gnarled roots made a cave at the water's edge. He scuttled into the cave, drawing as far back from the entrance as he could.

Quiet footfalls halted above him: all three guards, by the sound. Their lights flashed yellow over the brook. Sano held his breath, fearful that they would see its thin vapor rising from within the cave of roots. Then someone said, "I think he came this way."

"No," said the voice that had called the housekeeper a stupid hen. "He'd have jumped the wall."

The first voice: "We'll keep looking until we're sure. The young master's orders-no trespa.s.sers."

Their voices grew fainter as they moved off. Sano crept from his hiding place and peered over the incline. He saw the lights bobbing through the trees, one toward the front wall, the other deeper into the woods. He relaxed, safe for the moment, although he faced another problem. The guards' presence made his familiar escape route too risky. He had to find another way out, but he didn't know how far it was to the rear wall, if he could find his way to it through the woods, or where other guards might be stationed.

An idea came to him. With these three men out chasing him, the house was less heavily guarded. And they would expect him to run away from it, not toward it. He could pa.s.s under the buildings and head for the wall on the far side of the gate.

Sano began a slow advance on the house. He felt each step of the way with his hands and feet so he wouldn't make any noise. Finally he reached the edge of the clearing. Lying there, he scanned the house.

The front-door guard remained at his post, gazing after his companions. Another guard was patrolling the side of the villa. Sano watched the man complete two rounds of inspection to learn the pattern. Walk to front of house, pause, look around. Turn. Walk along side of house, all the way past covered corridor to pavilion, while scrutinizing woods. Turn, repeat. Sano waited until the guard had almost reached the turnaround point at the pavilion. Then he hurried across the open s.p.a.ce in a crouching run and dived under the house.

He traversed the side house and its covered corridor. He'd reached the shinden when he heard m.u.f.fled voices and creaking wood overhead. Lord Niu and his guests. Crawling to the shinden's rear corner, Sano poked his head out from under the house. He saw no one on the back veranda or in the garden. Those guards must be the ones now searching the woods for him. He eased the rest of his body free. The voices grew louder, carrying through the flimsy paper panes between the lattice bars. The men sounded agitated, all talking at once, their words unintelligible. Tense in antic.i.p.ation of more flying arrows, Sano knew he should go before the guards came. He reminded himself that he had the sandal and the rope and O-hisa's testimony. What more could he expect?

Instead of running, Sano drew his dagger. He'd come too far and risked too much to leave without learning all he could. Emboldened by the noise in the house, he cut a hole in the window. Cautiously he put his eye to it.

Oil lamps and charcoal braziers filled the vast room with an eerie, flickering light and a smoky haze. In the center, twenty young men sat in a semicircle, arguing, oblivious to anything outside. Sano recognized some of them as men Lord Niu had met at the swordmaker's shop and the martial arts academy. So Lord Niu's movements hadn't been as aimless as they'd seemed. He'd arranged the "chance" encounters to summon the men to this meeting. Now they faced him as he knelt upon a platform, a painted screen at his back. An uneasy quiet, punctuated by throat clearings, fell over the group, as if they feared his response.

Although the remains of a meal lay on trays scattered among the men, Sano found the scene more suggestive of a haphazard picnic than of a banquet. Their serious expressions and the almost palpable tension in the room told him this was no ordinary social occasion. Also, the men were armed, as they normally wouldn't be in a private house. Sano pursed his lips in surprise when he recognized the crests on their kimonos: those of the Maeda, Date, and Hosokawa families among them. Lord Niu had a.s.sembled representatives from every major daimyo clan except for the Tokugawas.

The Maeda man spoke. "I think the plan is too risky," he said. "It won't work. I propose we reconsider the alternatives."

Immediately the others joined their voices again in furious dissent.

"He's right!"

"No! It will work!"

"There's no time to lose, we have to act!"

"I don't like it, either."

"That's enough." Lord Niu, who had watched with a thin smile as his companions argued, now silenced them with one peremptory command.

They turned to him, faces reflecting various degrees of fear, respect, and admiration. Sano could understand how Lord Niu inspired such emotions. The daimyo's son fairly shimmered with a pa.s.sion that lit his eyes and made his small body seem larger. Even his skin, flushed perhaps by his recent s.e.xual release, suggested an inner fire that drew the men to its warmth. For what scheme had he recruited them? Sano wondered whether it had any bearing on the murders, or if he was risking his life needlessly by eavesdropping.

"There will be no more discussion of the plan," Lord Niu said, disappointing Sano. He stood, a slight jerkiness of movement the only sign of his deformity. "But in case you have forgotten, let me remind you why our action is necessary, and what we stand to gain from it."

His voice rose in both pitch and volume; he dominated the room, holding the other men motionless as he paced the platform. "Are we not sick unto death of the repression and humiliation that our oppressors have perpetrated upon us? Have our fathers and grandfathers not been stripped of their ancestral fiefs and moved to lesser ones at the ends of the earth? Have they not suffered the indignities of alternate attendance in Edo and imprisonment on their estates? Are they not unable to come and go freely?"

An angry rumble pa.s.sed through the men. Backs straightened; fists clenched.

"Must we continue to let the Tokugawas drain our wealth away by forcing us to subsidize the maintenance of their castles, their roads, their waterworks?" Lord Niu shouted, eyes blazing. "Why should we finance the government while the shogun wastes his own money on his harem of boy actors and peasants? Why should we let him dictate how we should furnish our homes, and even how we should dress? Should we endure his spying upon us? Or the abominable hara.s.sment by his inspectors when we travel on the Tokaido?"

The rumble became a roar. "We won't stand for it any longer!" someone shouted. Other men took up the cry, quieting only when Lord Niu raised his voice over theirs.

"Tokugawa Tsunayoshi is a weak fool who lets his army and his chamberlain, the despicable Yanagisawa, run the government while he sports with the wives and daughters of his ministers. And with his enforced peace, he would drag us down to his own level of moral depravity. Do we let him deprive us of our rightful occupation-that of serving our honor by making war?"

"No! No! Down with the Tokugawas!"

Sano had to choke back a gasp of surprise. He found himself trembling with excitement. The meeting's isolated setting, the secretive arrival of the partic.i.p.ants, and Lord Niu's incendiary speech could mean only one thing. The risky plan const.i.tuted a plot against the Tokugawa government. Treason. For which Lord Niu, if caught, would be executed and disgraced more certainly than if convicted for the murder of a samurai child. And for which his family would share his punishment. Now Sano wondered whether Yukiko had died not because she'd witnessed the murder, but because she'd discovered the plot. And what about Noriyoshi? Had he learned of it too?

"Do we let Tsunayoshi rob us of our samurai heritage and values as well, by turning us into simpering bureaucrats who protect dogs, or vulgar oafs who brawl in the streets for want of anything better to do?" Lord Niu asked.

"No!" all twenty voices shouted in unison.

"Then we must act without delay. We must fight as we were born to do. We will restore to our names the honor and glory that has been denied them for too long!"

Now that he'd recovered from his initial shock, Sano sensed an underlying false note in Lord Niu's performance. His pacing, his hand gestures, and the anger in his voice and expression seemed overly theatrical. Lord Niu was playing to his audience as an actor would, exploiting their legitimate anger toward the Tokugawas. Did he really care about the shogun's mistreatment of his or the other daimyo clans?

But the men responded with great enthusiasm to his theatrics. "Yes! Yes!" The floor shuddered as they leaped to their feet. Metal rasped as they unsheathed their swords and held them high.

Lord Niu reached behind the painted screen. He held two objects high: an open scroll half covered with characters, and a writing brush. "Then it is time to pledge our oath," he announced.

Kneeling, he laid the scroll and brush on the platform. He drew his dagger. A hush fell over the room as he gashed his palm. Dipping the brush into his blood, he wrote the characters of his name on the scroll below the text. His face betrayed no sign of the pain he must have felt, but some of the other young men winced. One by one, they mounted the platform, cut their palms, added their signatures to the scroll, and returned to their places.

Sano's own palms tingled as he watched. These men, although foolhardy, were serious. A blood oath was a solemn one. He would have given anything to know what the text on the scroll said.

When they finished, Lord Niu stood. "A poem to commemorate this occasion," he announced, a sly smile lifting the corner of his mouth. Gesturing with the rolled scroll, he recited: "The sun sets over the plain-"

Good luck as the New Year approaches."

The poem was not familiar to Sano, nor did it seem a very good one. And its significance escaped him. But the conspirators greeted it with wild cheers and laughter that broke the tension which had accompanied their oath. Then Lord Niu began shouting more epithets against the Tokugawas, inciting his men to greater fury. The house thundered with their shouts.

"Soon we will show our fathers that we are true samurai!" Lord Niu cried. "We will make them proud to call us their sons!"

For the first time, Sano heard real pa.s.sion behind Lord Niu's words. Now he understood that while the other young men sought power and glory for their generation, Lord Niu was doing this for his father. The knowledge gave Sano an unexpected and unwilling sense of identification with Lord Niu. Filial duty compelled them both. Except in Lord Niu, some warped form of love drove him to expose the daimyo to the dubious benefits and certain dangers of having a traitor in the family. But Sano began to despair of learning the details of the plot. Even if he didn't need them to complete his case against Lord Niu, duty required that he report them to the authorities. He looked over his shoulder for the guards. How long could he stay without getting caught?

A sudden drop in the noise level inside recalled his attention to the window. He brought his eye to the hole again. He saw the men turn toward a guard who had entered the room.

Lord Niu said, "What is it?" Breathless from his efforts, he wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve.

The guard bowed. "I am sorry to interrupt you, master, but I must warn you that there is a trespa.s.ser on the grounds. We almost caught him in the west woods, but he got away."

First Sano froze. Then he felt an instinctive desire to flee. Only his compelling need to hear more kept him where he was.

"A spy!" a Hosokawa man gasped.

The others let loose a volley of panicky questions and laments. "Oh, no! Are we discovered? Who betrayed us? What will we do now?" They seemed so young, so excitable, and so easily frightened that Sano wondered how they would manage to carry out whatever plan they'd concocted.

Lord Niu strode to the front of his platform. He alone showed no fear. "Fools!" he said with a sardonic laugh. "Why do you waste time talking and worrying? Go out and kill him, and he won't trouble us any longer."

"He's right! Come on!" Swords drawn, the men stampeded from the room.

"And don't just look in the west woods-search the whole estate," Lord Niu called after them. He remained on his platform, arms folded, face stern and immobile.

Sano didn't wait for the bloodthirsty horde to spill out of the shinden. Turning, he ran into the woods, making straight for the wall. He scaled it and jumped into the darkness and safety that lay outside.

Chapter 22.

The swordmaker, dressed like a Shinto priest in white ceremonial robes, pulled a glowing bar of red-hot steel from the outdoor furnace with his tongs. His a.s.sistant grabbed the other end, bending the pliant metal double. Then, chanting prayers, the two men began to beat the bar with heavy mallets, the first step in the process of folding and refolding the steel into a million layers that would give the finished blade flexibility as well as strength. Each blow rang sharply in the clear morning air. Apprentices dashed about, fetching water for the final quenching, stoking the furnace with coal. Heat poured from the furnace into the lane that separated the swordmaker's shop from a row of foundries where craftsmen shaped metal into horseshoes and other more mundane forms.

Sano leaned against the low wooden fence, alternately watching the swordmakers and scanning the lane. Laborers pushed past him, carrying raw materials and finished wares to and from the workshops. Whenever a woman approached, he straightened in antic.i.p.ation, then leaned back again when he saw it was not O-hisa. But he wasn't worried. He'd arrived a little ahead of the appointed hour, and besides, a short wait couldn't spoil his mood.

Lord Niu's men hadn't caught him last night. A hot bath and a few hours of sleep at an inn had eased the effects of the long walk back to Edo and an equally long stay at a disreputable teahouse on the edge of town, where he'd waited for dawn and the opening of the gates. In clothes dried over the brazier, and with both swords at his waist, Sano felt confident that he could meet the day's challenges with success. The crisp, bright weather reflected his renewed optimism. Only the constant worry over his father gnawed at the edges of his thoughts. Patience, he counseled himself. He had Noriyoshi's sandal and the rope tucked in his cloak, ready to bring to the Council of Elders. And soon he would have O-hisa, his witness.

He would regain his former status as yoriki, thereby positioning himself to investigate and thwart the plot against the government. He would reclaim his honor. His father would live.

Noon came and went. The street quieted as the craftsmen had their meals, then clamored with activity again when they returned to work. Still no O-hisa. Sano's optimism waned. He began fabricating excuses for her. Lord Niu had decided to stay longer at the villa and had kept the servants with him. Lady Niu or one of the other women had detained her with some task, and O-hisa would sneak away as soon as she could. Finally, though, he had to entertain the worst of all possibilities: she'd changed her mind. Or been found out by the Nius and silenced. She wasn't coming. He'd lost his chance to salvage his family's honor, and all hope of his father's recovery.

Panic made Sano reckless. He rushed through Nihonbashi to the daimyo district. Just as he reached the Nius' gate, it opened. Hope swelled, then died again when he saw not O-hisa, but a mounted samurai come charging through the portals. One look at the man's face sent him running for cover. It was Lord Niu.

In an instant, Sano had to weigh his choices. He could wait for O-hisa, who might never appear, or he could follow Lord Niu and perhaps learn more about the plot. His commitment to O-hisa and their earlier plan warred with his curiosity. He took a step in Lord Niu's direction, then paused, looking back at the estate. Finally a desire for positive action swayed his decision. He hurried after Lord Niu.

Following the daimyo's son proved harder than it had yesterday, but not because he was on foot while Lord Niu rode. Although Setsubun wouldn't officially start until dark, the streets of Nihonbashi were filling with rowdy townspeople who had begun their celebrations early. Young men dressed in women's clothes a.s.sailed Lord Niu with mock come-ons, persisting until he waved his sword at them. His horse shied when children threw firecrackers that popped near its hooves. Housewives hurried to and fro with bundles of last-minute purchases for their New Year's Day feasts. In such confusion, a mounted man could travel no faster than one who walked. But without his disguise, Sano had to lag far behind Lord Niu to avoid being seen and recognized. The crowds got in his way and distracted him. What if he confused Lord Niu with some other rider dressed in plain dark clothing? A drunken old man accosted Sano, urging sake upon him. A group of adolescent boys blocked his way with a mock sword battle. With relief he emerged from the suffocating residential district into a wide, relatively uncrowded street of fine shops and rich merchants' dwellings. He was just in time to see the back of Lord Niu's horse disappear down an alley on the other side. He hurried forward, but a roaring wave of sound, comprised of shouts, hoofbeats, and the tramp of countless marching feet, bore down on him.

A horde of mounted samurai rounded the corner, bearing banners emblazoned with the cross-within-a-square Asano crest. Ahead of them, runners dashed back and forth across the street.

"Out of the way!" they yelled. "Bow down! Bow down!"

All around Sano, people hastened to comply. Dropping their bundles, they fell to their knees in the gutters, arms extended before them, foreheads pressed to the ground. Everyone knew that the samurai wouldn't hesitate to exercise kirisute-their legal right to cut down and kill any peasant not quick enough to bow before a daimyo's procession. Sano leaped forward, hoping to cross the street ahead of the procession. But rows of kneeling bodies blocked his way.

The procession thundered past. First the hors.e.m.e.n, haughty and upright, then hundreds of servants carrying baskets of provisions and treasure. Foot soldiers came next, wearing big, circular wicker hats, shoulders moving in their characteristic, bold "cutting the air" manner. Finally the daimyo's gaudy palanquin appeared, followed by endless regiments of more samurai and servants.

Sano ran sideways, hoping to cross the street behind them. He couldn't bear to lose Lord Niu. But he couldn't get around the corner; there, the marchers filled the street from wall to wall. Fairly hopping with impatience, he was forced to wait until the whole procession pa.s.sed.

Finally the street cleared. The peasants picked themselves up and went about their business. Sano dashed across the street and into the alley, only to find that Lord Niu had vanished without a trace.

Cursing his bad luck, Sano raced through the streets, asking shopowners and pedestrians, "Did you see a young samurai on horseback pa.s.s this way?"

No one had. Either the procession had claimed all their attention, or else the sight of one ordinary rider was too unremarkable to remember.

Sano refused to give up. He climbed a rickety ladder to a vacant fire-watch tower and looked down over the rooftops to the seething streets. In the distance he saw several hors.e.m.e.n, but he couldn't tell which, if any of them, was Lord Niu. Then, just as he was descending the ladder, he saw a familiar figure emerge from an inn down the block.

Cherry Eater, hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun, craned his neck as if looking for someone. He carried a large cloth bundle slung over his shoulder; it thumped against his back as he broke into a run.

Jumping the last few rungs, Sano landed with a jolt and hurried after Cherry Eater. He remembered Lord Niu ordering the shunga dealer to pick up his money today. Perhaps the two of them had arranged to meet again somewhere away from the Niu estate afterward. If Cherry Eater didn't lead him to Lord Niu, Sano would return to the swordmaker's shop to look for O-hisa again.

The shunga dealer seemed afraid of being followed. He kept looking back over his shoulder. He would suddenly veer around corners or hide behind notice boards. He ducked into shops and teahouses, waited awhile, then cautiously poked his ugly face out to look both ways before emerging again. Once he stayed so long that Sano wondered whether whatever misfortune he feared had befallen him inside. Then, realizing what had happened, Sano ran around the block just in time to see Cherry Eater come out the teahouse's rear door and hurry away.

He almost lost Cherry Eater again at the fish market, which sprawled over the banks of the ca.n.a.l beside the Nihonbashi Bridge. Cherry Eater plunged into the vast, noisy building, threading his way through the crowds that choked the narrow pathways between row upon row of stalls. Sano dodged around barrels of live mackerel and tuna and baskets of clams and scallops. The reek of rotting fish filled his nostrils. A cl.u.s.ter of customers haggling over the price of three huge sharks suspended from a horizontal pole blocked his way. By the time he'd elbowed past them, Cherry Eater was far ahead of him, leaning over a table laden with seaweed to talk to the proprietor.

Catching up, Sano heard Cherry Eater shout, "I need my money now! Give it to me!"

"But I don't have it," the man protested.

Cherry Eater gave a howl of pure despair. He turned and ran, darting out through one of the arched doorways and into the sunshine. Sano lunged forward. His feet slipped in the fish scales and entrails that befouled the ground, and he almost fell. Why, he wondered, did Cherry Eater need money so badly after extorting a fortune from Lord Niu? He thought of questioning the seaweed vendor, but he mustn't lose Cherry Eater.

Outside, Cherry Eater made straight for the ca.n.a.l, where fishermen had drawn their boats up to the bank to auction off their catches. Sano hurried after him as he picked his way through the shouting bidders. Cherry Eater squinted at each boat. Then he paused, his drooping posture making it obvious that he hadn't found the one he sought. He spoke to a few fishermen, and Sano caught a few phrases: "Have you seen... the boat was supposed to be waiting... "

Getting only shakes of the head in answer, Cherry Eater headed back toward the market. But instead of going inside, he cut across an alley and entered one of a long line of establishments in a dingy building whose once-white plaster walls had turned a scabrous gray.

Sano hesitated about twenty paces from the doorway. FRESH-CATCH SUSHI, the sign read. Teahouses filled with fishermen and laborers occupied the rooms on either side. When Cherry Eater didn't reappear immediately, Sano wondered whether to look for him at the back door, or wait in one of the teahouses. Was Cherry Eater meeting Lord Niu now, or just trying to shake pursuers? Sano risked a walk past the sushi restaurant and glanced inside.

A chest-high counter ran along the right side of the long, narrow room, stopping just short of the back wall, where a curtained doorway led to the kitchen. Behind the counter the chef, wearing a blue headband over bushy eyebrows, sliced raw fish, encased it in rolls of vinegared rice and seaweed, and distributed it to his seven customers with remarkable speed and precision. Cherry Eater stood near the end of the counter, his back to the door. Oblivious to the full plate before him, he was speaking in urgent tones to the man beside him.

The room was dim, and hazy with smoke from the customers' pipes. Sano took another chance. Entering the restaurant, he stood at the counter two places away from Cherry Eater. His neighbors, both ripe-smelling dockworkers, scowled their greetings and reluctantly moved aside to make room for him.

"What will you have, master?" the chef called to Sano, not looking up from his flashing knife.

"Anything that's good," Sano answered absentmindedly. Keeping his face averted, he listened to Cherry Eater's conversation.

The shunga dealer had dropped his bundle. Wringing his insectile hands, he moaned, "Yes, I know it's a lot of money, and more than we agreed on." For once he did not offer a wisecrack or veiled insult; anxiety had stifled his wit. "But I need it, and I need it now."

His companion was not Lord Niu, but a gray-haired, shabbily dressed fat man who answered in a gruff mumble that Sano strained to understand. Was he a moneylender? Or another of Cherry Eater's blackmail victims? Unfortunately, the chef chose that moment to interrupt.

"Dancing sushi, best in town," he barked, zinging a plate down the counter toward Sano. "Eat up now."

"Thank you." Sano picked up a still-wriggling prawn with his chopsticks and ate it, wishing the chef would keep quiet. He'd missed Fat Man's entire reply.

"Easy for you to say do not worry," Cherry Eater railed. "You are not running for your life!"