The Ronin's Mistress: A Novel (Sano Ichiro Novels) Read online

  To my husband, Marty.

  After thirty years of marriage, you’ve earned another dedication.

  Historical Note

  I AM FASCINATED by the true story of the forty-seven rōnin, which is one of the most famous, beloved tales in Japanese history. A difficulty in understanding it is that although there are many sources of information on it, few historical details have been established beyond doubt. Much information about the forty-seven rōnin’s vendetta is based on speculation by historians during the course of more than three hundred years. The many fictionalized accounts further obscure the truth. Details that appear in books, plays, and movies have been repeated so often that they pass for facts even when they are not indeed facts. Setting the record straight is probably impossible, and I won’t try. Here I will lay out the facts that are known and explain what in this novel is a product of my imagination.

  In 1701, Lord Asano of Harima Province was the host for visiting envoys from the Emperor’s court. Kira Yoshinaka, the master of ceremonies at Edo Castle, was responsible for instructing Lord Asano in the necessary etiquette. On April 21, 1701, Lord Asano drew his sword on Kira, mentioned that he had a grievance against him, attacked him, and wounded him. The only witness to the attack was Kajikawa Yosobei, a keeper of the castle. Drawing a sword inside Edo Castle was a capital offense, and Lord Asano was forced to commit ritual suicide that same day. His retainers became rōnin, masterless samurai. The house of Asano was dissolved. Kira claimed that Lord Asano had attacked him for no reason. Kira wasn’t punished for his part in the fiasco, and the government ruled that no action should be taken against him. On February 1, 1703, after some secret conspiring, forty-seven of the rōnin sought revenge on Kira, whom they blamed for Lord Asano’s death. They invaded Kira’s house, fought the guards, killed Kira by decapitating him, then carried his severed head to Sengaku Temple and laid it at Lord Asano’s grave. There they awaited orders. A big controversy developed: What should be done with the forty-seven rōnin, who had fulfilled their duty to their master by avenging his death but broken the law? A supreme court was created to decide.

  Those are the bare bones of the story. Intriguing questions remain. Why did Lord Asano attack Kira? If there was a quarrel, what was it about? Why did the forty-seven rōnin wait almost two years to avenge Lord Asano? What orders were they expecting?

  Many writers have posed answers to these questions. The Rōnin’s Mistress offers my answers. In presenting my version of the events that led up to and came after the vendetta, I have followed the real timeline and based characters on actual historical figures. Oishi was Lord Asano’s chief retainer and the leader of the forty-seven rōnin. He did have a wife and a mistress, as well as a son named Chikara, who was one of the forty-seven. Lord Asano’s wife went to live in a convent after he died. The shogun and Chamberlain Yanagisawa are based on the real men. (I have left out some historical figures from the forty-seven rōnin tale, in order to keep this book from growing too long and unwieldy. I have also altered minor details.) One of the supreme court judges was a magistrate, but he wasn’t Magistrate Ueda, who is my creation. My creations also include the personalities, actions, and words attributed to the “real” characters. I invented everyone else, including Sano, Reiko, Hirata, and their families.

  Although I believe that some dark, dirty secrets must have motivated Lord Asano’s attack on Kira, and the forty-seven rōnin’s vendetta, there is no historical evidence for the scenario that I have presented or for my ending to the trial. (No one knows exactly what happened during the time between the forty-seven rōnin’s arrest and the supreme court’s verdict, or what was said in the courtroom on the day the verdict was rendered.) This book is fiction. I ask readers to keep in mind that most of the things in it—and in the previous books in my series—never happened.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Historical Note

  Map

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Also by Laura Joh Rowland

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Edo, Month 12, Genroku Year 15

  (Tokyo, February 1703)

  Prologue

  SNOW SIFTED FROM the night sky over Edo. The wind howled, whipping the snow into torn veils, piling drifts against the shuttered buildings. Flakes gleamed in white halos around lamps at the gates at every intersection. Time was suspended, the city frozen in a dream of winter.

  A band of forty-seven samurai marched through the deserted streets east of the Sumida River. They wore heavy padded cloaks and trousers, their faces shaded by wicker hats and muffled in scarves. Their boots crunched in the snow as they leaned into the wind. Each wore two swords at his waist. Some carried bows and slings of arrows over their shoulders; others clutched spears in gloved hands. The men at the end of the procession lumbered under the weight of ladders, coiled ropes, and huge wooden mallets. They did not speak.

  There was no need for discussion. Their plans were set, understood by all. The time for doubts, fear, and turning back had passed. Their feet marched in lockstep. The wind blew stinging flakes into eyes hard with determination.

  They halted in a road where high earthen walls protected estates inside, gazing up at the mansion where their destiny waited. Two stories tall, surrounded by barracks, it had curved tile roofs that spread like snow-covered wings. All was dark and tranquil, the sleeping residents oblivious to danger.

  The leader of the forty-seven samurai was a lean, agile man with fierce eyes and strong, slanted brows visible above the scarf that covered the lower half of his face. He nodded to his comrades. Twenty-three men stole around the corner. The leader stayed with the others. As they advanced toward the front gate, a watchdog lunged out from beneath its roof. He uttered a single bark before two samurai tied his legs and fastened a muzzle over his snout. He whimpered and writhed helplessly. Other samurai positioned ladders against the walls. Up they climbed. Some let themselves down on ropes on the inside. Archers leaped onto the roofs. The leader and his remaining men gathered by the gate and waited.

  Three deep, hollow beats struck on a war drum told them that their comrades were in position at the rear of the mansion. Two samurai took up the wooden mallets and pounded the gate. Planks shattered.

  Inside the mansion’s barracks, the guards slumbered. The pounding awakened them. They leaped out of their beds, crying, “We’re under attack!”

  Grabbing their swords, they ran outside, barefoot and half dressed, into the blizzard. Through the broken gate charged the invaders, s
words drawn, spears aimed. The guards tried to defend themselves, but the invaders cut them down. Swords sliced open throats and bellies; spears pierced naked chests. Blood splashed the snow. The guards scattered, turned, and fled toward the mansion, crying for help.

  More guards poured out of the barracks. The archers on the roofs fired arrows at them. The samurai who’d breached the back gate came rushing to join their band. They intercepted the guards trying to escape. The battle was a tumult of ringing blades, colliding fighters, falling bodies, and whirling snow. Soon most of the guards lay dead or wounded.

  Accompanied by a few men, the leader of the forty-seven ran to the mansion. They brandished their swords in the entryway, but no one stopped them. The leader took down a lantern that hung on the wall, carrying it as he and his men moved along the dark corridors. All was quiet until they penetrated deeper into the mansion, when they heard sobbing. The lantern illuminated a room filled with women and children, huddled together in fright.

  “Where is he?” the leader demanded.

  The women hid their faces and cried. The samurai continued searching. They came to a bedchamber whose size and elegant furnishings were fit for the lord of the mansion. A futon was spread on the floor, the quilt flung back. The leader touched the bed.

  “It’s still warm,” he said.

  His gaze went to a large scroll hanging on the wall. He yanked aside the scroll. Behind it was a door, which he opened. Cold air and snowflakes blew in from a courtyard. Bare footprints in the snow led to a shed. The samurai rushed to the shed and flung the door open. The leader shone the lantern inside.

  On the floor, amid firewood and coal, sat an old man. His knees were drawn up to his chin, his arms folded across his chest. He wore a cotton night robe and cap. He shivered, his teeth chattering, his breath puffs of vapor. His lined face was white; his eyes shone with terror.

  “Who are you?” asked one of the samurai, the youngest, a sturdy boy.

  The old man lashed out with a dagger he’d been hiding. The boy grabbed his wrist and wrenched the dagger from his grasp. He cried out in weak, pained protest. The leader pulled off the man’s cap and held the lantern near his head. A white scar gleamed on his bald crown.

  “It’s him,” the leader said. “Bring him outside.”

  The samurai threw the old man on his back in the snow. They pinned his arms and legs while he screamed. The leader stood over the captive. He removed the scarf that hid his face, then held up the lantern so that the old man could see him. Below his fierce eyes, his nose was long with flared nostrils, his mouth thick but firm. He wasn’t young, and his features wore the stamp of suffering.

  “You know who we are. You know why we’re here.” He chanted the words as if he’d rehearsed them. “Now you’ll pay for the evil you’ve done.”

  The old man tried to turn his head away, but the boy grabbed it and held it immobile. He moaned and rolled his eyes, seeking help that didn’t come. He struggled to escape, in vain. The leader drew his sword, grasped it in both hands, and raised it high over his head. The old man’s lips formed words of silent protest or prayer.

  The blade came slashing down. It cleaved the old man’s throat. All the samurai leaped backward to avoid the blood spurting from the cut that severed his head from his body. An involuntary convulsion splayed his limbs. His face froze in an expression of blank-eyed, open-mouthed horror.

  The boy put a whistle to his lips and blew. The shrill, piercing sound signaled that the old man was dead and the forty-seven samurai had accomplished their mission.

  Soon would come their reckoning with fate.

  1

  THE BLIZZARD ENDED by morning. The sky cleared to a pale blue as dawn glided over the hills east of Edo, leaving the city serene under a mantle of fresh, sparkling snow. Cranes flew over the rise where Edo Castle perched. The great fortress wore white frosting atop its walls and guard towers. In the innermost precinct of the castle stood the palace. Dark cypress beams gridded the white plaster walls of the low, interconnected buildings; gold dragons crowned the peaks of its tile roofs. In the garden, boulders and shrubs were smooth white mounds. Ice glazed a pond surrounded by trees whose bare branches spread lacy black patterns against the brightening sky. The snow on the lawn and gravel paths was pristine, undisturbed by footprints. The garden appeared deserted, but appearances were deceiving.

  Under a large pine tree, in a shelter formed by its spreading boughs, three samurai crouched. Sano Ichirō, the shogun’s sōsakan-sama—Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People—huddled with his two top detectives, Marume and Fukida. Although they’d covered the ground with a quilt and they wore hats, gloves, fleece-lined boots, and layers of thick, padded clothing, they were shivering. They’d been here all night, and their shelter was cold enough that they could see their breath. Sano flexed his numb fingers and toes in an attempt to ward off frostbite, as he and his men watched the palace through gaps between the bristly, resin-scented pine sprigs.

  “Pretty, isn’t it?” said Fukida, the slight, serious detective.

  “I would think it a lot prettier if I were sitting in a hot bath.” The big, muscular Marume was usually jovial but was cross now, after an uncomfortable night.

  Sano didn’t join the conversation. He was too cold and too downcast after a long run of trouble. Although he usually put on a cheerful appearance for the sake of morale, that had gotten harder as the months passed.

  Footsteps crunched the snow. Sano put his finger to his lips, then pointed outside. A man slouched into view. He wore a straw snow cape and a wicker hat. Furtive, he looked around. No one was watching that he could see. Sano had given the patrol guards the night off.

  “It’s him,” Fukida said. “At last.”

  Their quarry sidled up to the palace, climbed the stairs to the veranda, and stopped by the door. He lifted his cape, exposing stout legs, the loincloth wrapped around his waist and crotch, and voluminous white buttocks. He squatted and defecated.

  This was the person who’d been sneaking around and fouling the palace late at night or early in the morning.

  Sano, Marume, and Fukida leaped out from under the pine boughs. Marume yelled, “Hah! Got you!”

  The man looked up, startled. He was a pimple-faced youth. Terrified by the sight of three samurai charging toward him, he jumped up to run, but he slipped in the snow and fell on the dung he’d just dropped. Marume and Fukida caught him. They held him while he struggled and began to cry.

  “You’re under arrest,” Fukida said.

  “Phew, you stink!” Marume said.

  Sano asked the captive, “What’s your name?”

  “Hitoshi,” the man mumbled between sobs.

  “Who are you?” Sano said.

  “I’m an underservant in the castle.” Underservants did the most menial, dirtiest jobs—mopping floors, cleaning privies.

  “Why have you been defecating on the palace?” Sano said.

  “My boss is always picking on me. Once he made me lick a chamber pot clean.” Hitoshi turned sullen. “I just wanted to get him in trouble.”

  “Well, you succeeded,” Marume said. The supervisor of servants, who was responsible for keeping the castle clean, had been reprimanded by the shogun, the military dictator who lived in the palace and ruled Japan. The shogun had ordered Sano to personally catch the culprit. “Now you’re in even bigger trouble.”

  What Hitoshi had done wasn’t just unsanitary. It was a grave criminal offense.

  “Come along,” Fukida said. He and Marume hauled Hitoshi down the steps.

  Hitoshi resisted, dragging his feet. “Where are you taking me?”

  “To the shogun,” Sano said.

  As Hitoshi protested, pleaded, and wept, the detectives hustled him along. Fukida said, “Another job well done.”

  “Indeed.” Sano heard the rancor in his own voice. This was a far cry from solving important murder cases, as he’d once done. It was also a huge fall from the post he’d once hel
d—chamberlain of Japan, second-in-command to the shogun. But Sano couldn’t complain. After the catastrophe almost two years ago, he knew he should be thankful that his head was still on his body.

  Marume said quietly, “Sometimes in this life you just have to take what you can get.”

  * * *

  IN THE AUDIENCE chamber inside Edo Castle, Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi sat on the dais, enfolded in quilts up to the weak chin of his mild, aristocratic face. He wore a thick scarf under the cylindrical black cap of his rank. Smoking charcoal braziers surrounded him and three old men from the Council of Elders—Japan’s chief governing body—who knelt on the upper of two levels of floor below the dais. The sliding walls were open to the veranda, where Sano stood with Marume and Fukida. Hitoshi knelt at their feet, sobbing. The shogun had forbidden Sano to bring the disgusting captive inside the chamber. Hence, Sano and his detectives were out in the cold, as if they were pariahs—which, in fact, they were.

  “So this is the man who has been defiling my castle?” The shogun hadn’t even bothered to greet Sano. He squinted at Hitoshi.

  “Yes, Your Excellency.” Sano knew the shogun didn’t owe him any thanks for his work or for fourteen years of loyal, unstinting service. That was Bushido, the Way of the Warrior, the samurai code of honor. But the snub rankled nonetheless. “We caught him in the act.”

  The shogun said to Hitoshi, “What have you to say for yourself?”

  “I’m sorry!” Hitoshi was hysterical with fright. “Please have mercy!”

  The shogun flapped his hand. “I hereby sentence you to execution.” The elders nodded in approval. The shogun spoke in Sano’s general direction: “Get him out of my sight.”

  Marume and Fukida raised the blubbering Hitoshi to his feet and dragged him away. Sano frowned.

  At last the shogun deigned to acknowledge Sano’s presence. “What’s the matter?”

  “The death penalty seems excessive,” Sano said.