Sano Ichiro 12 The Snow Empress (2007) Read online

  “What could be the cause of this?” the shogun asked.

  “Perhaps an Ezo uprising has prevented Lord Matsumae from leaving his domain or sending communiques,” Sano said.

  From time to time the barbarians warred against the Japanese, invariably over trade disputes and Japanese intrusion into Ezo hunting and fishing territory. The last war had occurred some thirty years ago, when Ezo chieftains had banded together, attacked the Matsumae clan, and attempted to drive them out of Ezogashima. More than two hundred Japanese had been killed before the Matsumae finally subdued the barbarians. But another war with the Ezo wasn’t the most dire possibility.

  “Maybe the Manchurians have attacked,” Lord Matsudaira said.

  The regime had long feared an invasion, via Ezogashima, by the Manchurians from the Chinese mainland. The Matsumae clan was Japan’s buffer against them. Sano imagined war raging in Ezogashima, the Matsumae defeated, then enemy legions conquering Japan province by province before anyone in Edo knew. As everyone contemplated such a fate, fear opened the shogun’s mouth. He reached for Yoritomo, who held his hand.

  “Something must be done,” the shogun said to Sano.

  Sano knew what was coming. Even if instinct hadn’t alerted him, Lord Matsudaira’s sly smile would have. He hurried to head it off. “I’ll send a battalion of troops to Ezogashima today.”

  “That’s not good enough.” The shogun pointed a dripping, withered finger at Sano. “I want you to go yourself.”

  A sense of injustice flared up in Sano. That the shogun still treated him like an errand boy, ordering him here and there on a whim, even now that he was second-in-command! Yet he knew he had no right to be angry even though a trip to Ezogashima was the last thing he needed. He was just as much at his lord’s disposal as the lowliest foot soldier was; he owed the shogun unstinting duty without expectation of reward. That was Bushido, the Way of the Warrior, the code of honor by which he lived. And he knew that sending him to Ezogashima wasn’t the shogun’s idea. Sano glared at Lord Matsudaira.

  Lord Matsudaira met his gaze with bland indifference before saying, “That’s a wonderful idea, Your Excellency. I’m sure Chamberlain Sano will straighten everything out for us.”

  While Sano was gone, Lord Matsudaira would steal his allies and build up his own power base. Then there would be no place left at court for Sano. If he went to Ezogashima, he might as well never come back.

  “I’m eager to be of service, but if I go, who will help you run the government, Your Excellency?” Sano said, appealing to the shogun’s self-interest.

  That ploy usually worked, but this time the shogun said, “My dear cousin has assured me that he will, ahh, fill your shoes in your absence.” He smiled gratefully at Lord Matsudaira, who smirked.

  But Sano had another, more urgent reason besides politics for wanting to get out of the trip. Desperation drove him to beg for special consideration even though he never had before. “Your Excellency, this is a bad time for me to leave Edo. My son is missing.”

  “Ahh, yes, I recall,” the shogun said, diverted. “Poor little boy. How terrible for you and Lady Reiko.”

  Sano hastened to press his advantage: “I have to be here to lead the search for him.”

  The shogun wavered but then turned to Lord Matsudaira. “What do you think?”

  “I think that perhaps his wish to find his son gives Chamberlain Sano all the more motive to go to Ezogashima,” Lord Matsudaira said in a portentous tone. “Before you argue anymore, Chamberlain Sano, I have something to show you.”

  He stood, reached under his sash, pulled out an object, and handed it to Sano. It was the hilt of a miniature sword, the wooden blade broken off. As Sano gazed at the flying-crane crest stamped on the brass guard, recognition and puzzlement stunned him. The hilt came from one toy sword of a pair he’d given Masahiro. The sword was the mate of the longer one that Reiko had found at the temple. Masahiro had worn both weapons that night.

  “Where did you get this?” Sano demanded.

  Shrugging, Lord Matsudaira smiled, his expression innocent. “I think you can guess.”

  Sano pictured Lord Matsudaira’s soldiers emerging from the woods at the temple, grabbing Masahiro. He saw Masahiro struggle to defend himself, his blade breaking. The soldiers smuggled Masahiro away from town, under the cover of darkness, careful to leave no trail. Revelation confirmed what Sano had suspected from the start despite a lack of evidence.

  Lord Matsudaira had kidnapped Masahiro.

  Such rage beset Sano that a shrieking noise blared in his ears and blood crimsoned his vision. Lord Matsudaira had taken his son, put him and Reiko through two months of hell.

  “You!” Sano lunged at Lord Matsudaira.

  The shogun exclaimed in fright. The guards dragged Sano away from Lord Matsudaira, who was unfazed. Sano fought them, shouting, “What did you do to him? Where is he?”

  “What’s going on?” the shogun cried.

  Sano drew a breath to say that Lord Matsudaira had kidnapped his son as yet another move against him in their ongoing strife, to tell the shogun, at long last, that his cousin was after his place at the head of the dictatorship.

  “Beware, Chamberlain Sano,” Lord Matsudaira cautioned, shaking his head, his voice ominous, his smile gone. “Speak, and you’ll hurt yourself more than me.”

  Prudence grappled with anger in Sano and won. He exhaled his intentions in a gust of air, because he knew Lord Matsudaira was right.

  The shogun was still unaware that his cousin had seized control of Japan and Sano was contesting Lord Matsudaira. No one had told him, and he wasn’t observant enough to have noticed. Sano and Lord Matsudaira enforced a nationwide conspiracy of silence because if he did find out, the precarious balance of power could tip in a direction that favored neither of them. Their rivalry could become a three-way civil war if the daimyo on their sides shifted their backing to the shogun, who had the hereditary right to rule. They would see the advantage of grouping together under one leader versus dividing their strength between two. The shogun could emerge the victor in spite of his personal shortcomings. And defeat would be worse for Sano than Lord Matsudaira.

  Even if Lord Matsudaira lost his domains, his army, and his political position in a war, his blood ties to the shogun could shield him from execution for treason. He could live to fight another day. But Sano, an outsider, would be put to death, as would his family and all his close associates.

  Now Sano’s tongue was silenced, his hands chained. He could only stare with bitter hatred at his foe who’d struck him the lowest blow in his most vulnerable spot.

  “I won’t forget this,” he said in a voice so harsh, so threatening, that Lord Matsudaira flinched.

  “Forget what?” the shogun piped up timidly.

  “Where is he?” Sano demanded again.

  Lord Matsudaira recovered his swagger, his smile. “In Ezogashima.”

  Although Sano was stunned by fresh shock, he realized he shouldn’t be. The news of where Lord Matsudaira had sent his son had a feeling of inevitability. All the strands of conflict and misfortune in his life had braided together. This whole discussion had been leading up to this moment.

  “In Ezogashima,” Lord Matsudaira repeated, “where trouble is waiting for you to investigate.” His eyes shone with evil triumph. “He should have arrived in the castle town of Fukuyama City a month ago. You mustn’t lose any time getting there.”

  If you want to rescue your son, said his unspoken words. The ransom for Masahiro was Sano’s mission to Ezogashima, his absence from Edo. Despite the circumstances, Sano felt the burden of his misery lighten. At last he knew where Masahiro was. Lord Matsudaira could be lying, but Sano’s samurai instincts told him otherwise. His political instincts said that although Lord Matsudaira could easily have had Masahiro killed, that wasn’t the case, because Masahiro was too valuable alive, as a hostage.

  Now Sano’s mind shifted focus away from the present scene, to his top priority of retrievi
ng his son. The people around him seemed to shrink as if viewed from the far end of a spyglass. His new sense of mission dwarfed even Lord Matsudaira. Sano would deal with him later.

  “If you’ll excuse me, Your Excellency,” Sano said, bowing to the shogun, “I must prepare for a trip to Ezogashima.”

  “Ahh, are you going, then?” The shogun sounded relieved. All he’d gleaned from their conversation was that Sano had decided to obey his orders. Yoritomo gave Sano a strange, tormented, apologetic look, as if he thought himself to blame for Sano’s whole predicament. “Well, ahh, have a good voyage.”

  Sano was already out the door. He would rush headlong up north, as if he were a dog and Lord Matsudaira had thrown a stick for him to fetch.

  2

  The waterfall cascaded from a high cliff top. The setting sun gilded the water spilling past the twisted pine trees that shaded the damp, eroded rocks. Cold water splashed onto Hirata, who sat immersed up to his waist in a pool in a forest so remote that few ever ventured there.

  His naked body was numb beneath the pool’s surface; he couldn’t feel his buttocks, legs, or feet. His upper half shivered in the freezing wind, and his teeth chattered despite his clenched jaws. His skin was as pale as ice, his lips and fingernails blue. His hair was plastered to his head; his muscles and veins stood out like iron cords beneath his taut flesh. His closed eyelids quivered as he tried to ignore his physical distress.

  This was a ritual necessary to reaching the next level in mastering the secrets of dim-mak, the ancient mystic martial art that he’d been studying for four years.

  During his last lesson, he’d fought his teacher, the old priest Ozuno, in a practice match that had begun at dawn. They’d wielded swords, staffs, knives, bare hands, and magic spells at each other. It was afternoon when Ozuno finally knocked Hirata to the ground and held a blade to his throat. They’d both collapsed on the ground, exhausted.

  “I hate to admit it, but you almost beat me,” Ozuno said grudgingly. But his pride in his pupil and his own teaching showed on his stern face. Beneath his unkempt gray hair, his shrewd eyes twinkled. “You’re ready for your ordeal by waterfall.”

  Hirata groaned. “What good will it do me to freeze my rear end for ten days?”

  “What good will this do, what good will that do?” Ozuno mimicked him. “For once in your stupid life, can’t you accept instructions without questioning them?” But he explained, “Your body is a prison that holds your mind captive. To be truly at one with the cosmos and the wisdom there, we must set our minds free. We do that by overwhelming the senses, by subjecting the body to a state of near death. Then the spirit can move to a higher level of enlightenment.”

  “What does true enlightenment feel like?” Hirata asked.

  “It can’t be described, only experienced,” Ozuno said. “You’ll know when you achieve it.”

  Now Hirata was locked in a struggle to slow his heartbeat, to confine the flow of blood to his vital organs, to shut down his bodily processes to the minimum functioning required for survival, as Ozuno had taught him. Finally the cold, the sound, and the deluge of the waterfall receded from his consciousness. His spirit poised on the narrow line between life and death. The borders between himself and the environment dissolved. His mind floated in pure, liberated tranquility.

  He sensed the people in distant villages. He felt himself climbing up and up, beyond the vast human world that echoed with a million voices, thoughts, and emotions. Stars and planets appeared at the far reaches of his inner vision. Faster and faster he ascended. His spirit soared with the certainty that it verged on a breakthrough to a higher plane of consciousness.

  Suddenly his propulsion shuddered to a halt. Sensory manifestations intruded. Flashes of the water spilling down on him and pangs from the chill in his bones pierced his tranquility. Stars and planets winked out like snuffed candles. Then he was falling, his mind a rock dropping from a great height toward the body that shivered in the pool. Disappointment crushed Hirata.

  The breakthrough had eluded him. His perceptions were too limited. His spirit lacked some unknown, crucial dimension.

  As he plummeted into the human world, one pattern of thought and emotion among legions snagged his mind. He hung suspended long enough to recognize that pattern, that unique life-energy. He knew the man to whom it belonged. It resonated across space to him. At the same moment that his mind reinhabited his body, realization flashed through every cold, wet, trembling fiber of him.

  Sano is in trouble.

  Hirata staggered up from the water. Frozen and dripping, he clambered onto the bank. Sano, his master whom he was honor-bound to serve, who’d generously released him from his duties so that he could pursue his martial arts studies, now needed him. Hirata couldn’t resist the summons even though it was an involuntary cry for help that he’d sensed, not a direct order from Sano. No matter how much he desired enlightenment, it would have to wait.

  The path he must follow was the road to Edo.

  Evenings were the hardest times for Reiko. Each one ushered in the end of another day without Masahiro. Ahead of her stretched many long, dark hours before morning brought new hope that he would be found. Now, as she knelt in the lamplit nursery with her one-year-old daughter on her lap, she sank into despair. Not even her baby could comfort her. Akiko squirmed and bawled. She wouldn’t stop even though Reiko rocked her and sang to her. Her little face was bright red with temper, her mouth wide, her eyes squeezed shut and streaming tears.

  “Shh, Akiko, it’s all right,” Reiko murmured.

  But Akiko cried harder, for no apparent reason. She was a fussy child who gave Reiko not a moment of peace. Reiko often wondered if certain troubles she’d experienced during her pregnancy were to blame. Akiko was so unlike her brother, who’d been a lively yet much easier infant.

  The thought of Masahiro as a baby provoked such anguish in Reiko that she moaned as if physically struck. She knew she should be thankful to have one child left, but her heart was so full of pain that there was no room for gratitude.

  “Please stop crying, Akiko!” she wailed.

  Her friend Midori hurried into the chamber. “Let me have the baby.” She knelt, took Akiko in one arm, and enfolded Reiko in the other. “Don’t worry,” she said. “They’ll find him.”

  “But it’s been so long!” Weeping quaked Reiko. Every time she thought she’d run out of tears, she rediscovered that the well was bottomless. Akiko bawled louder, and Reiko knew that her own distress was worsening her child’s, but she couldn’t stop crying. “I’m so afraid I’ll never see him again.”

  “Of course you will,” Midori said, forceful and certain. “He’ll be back soon.” She hugged Reiko. “But I don’t know how he’ll recognize you. You’re so thin I can feel your bones. Have you eaten today?”

  Reiko shook her head. When she put food in her mouth, her throat closed up; she could hardly swallow. The flesh had melted from her body. She was as emaciated and weak as she’d been plump and healthy while pregnant with Masahiro. It was as if she were now pregnant with grief.

  “You have to keep up your strength,” Midori said. “I’ll bring you some soup.”

  “No thank you.” Reiko gulped while tears bled down her face. She wiped them away with a skeletal hand. Once she’d been full of vitality, practicing martial arts and traveling around town to help people in trouble in a manner unheard of for any woman, let alone the wife of a high official. Now she felt fragile and vulnerable, as if when she went outside she would fall and break her bones or be run down by a galloping horse. But although it was grief that debilitated her body, it was terror that consumed her spirit.

  Oh, Midori-san,“ she cried, ”what if Masahiro is—what if he’s—?“

  She couldn’t speak the awful word.

  Midori turned and said, “Here’s Chamberlain Sano.”

  Reiko looked up to see her husband standing in the doorway, “he baby stopped crying; she thrust out her little arms at him. He entered the c
hamber and took her from Midori. Akiko adored her father. She cooed and played with his topknot. Reiko’s sobs paused while she searched Sano’s face, as she did every day, for a sign of good news. She braced herself for another disappointment.

  This time she saw his familiar concern for her as he knelt before her, but his eyes were bright with elation. The tears dried on Reiko’s cheeks. Her heart began to pound furiously.

  “What is it?” she asked, breathless with hope.

  “I know where Masahiro is,” Sano said.

  A gasp choked Reiko. She pressed her hand to her chest. “Merciful gods!” Her spirits skyrocketed from the depths of misery to the heights of joy.

  “That’s wonderful!” Midori exclaimed. “Oh, Reiko-san, I’m so happy for you.”

  Reiko wept so hard with relief that a moment passed before she realized that Sano hadn’t actually said he’d found Masahiro. “Where is he?” she said, jumping to her feet. “Why haven’t you brought him to me?”

  Sano reached for her hand, drew her back down to the floor. “He’s in Ezogashima.”

  “Ezogashima?” Puzzled surprise arrested Reiko’s joy in midflight.

  “How in the world did he get there?” Midori asked.

  “Lord Matsudaira had him kidnapped.” Anger suffused Sano’s features. “That’s where he’s been taken.”

  As he elaborated, Reiko experienced two reactions that rushed upon her like waves coming from opposite directions. The first was gladness that her son was alive and she knew where. The second was horror that he was so far away, that such a thing had been done to him, that he was in terrible danger. She imagined Masahiro attacked by bandits on the highway or pirates at sea while he was under the dubious protection of Lord Matsudaira’s men, who would steal a little boy in order to further their master’s political aims.

  “You have to rescue him!” Reiko said, clutching at Sano.

  “That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” Sano said. “As soon as I can outfit a ship, I’ll sail for Ezogashima.”

  Reiko wasn’t satisfied. “I’m going with you.”