Dragon's King Palace (12 page)

“Someone has broken a trail through here,” he said.

Eyes alert, he hastened forward. The detectives followed. Hirata spied footprints in bare earth and crushed, rotting mushrooms. More cut branches marked places where someone had hacked past low-hanging tree limbs. Then Hirata spotted a small, gleaming object of irregular shape. He picked it up and found himself holding a woman’s sandal with a silk thong and a chunky red-lacquered sole.

“This must belong to Midori, Reiko, Lady Keisho-in, or Lady Yanagisawa,” Hirata said, afire with hope. “One of them must have dropped it while the kidnappers brought them through here.”

On through the forest he and his men plunged. As the trail continued, they found long black hairs caught on a tree trunk, as though the bark had snagged one of the women as she passed. A torn scrap of blue-brocaded silk adorned a prickly shrub. Hirata began to feel feverish, and his sore throat worsened; but exhilaration buoyed him. Every sign convinced him that he was following the route the kidnappers had taken… until the trail abruptly ended at the vertical rocky rise of a cliff.

Hirata and the detectives stared up at the cliff in dumbfounded disbelief. An icy wind blew mist into their faces.

“The kidnappers couldn’t have climbed that, with or without the women,” Marume said.

“The trail doesn’t go anywhere else,” Fukida said as he paced widening arcs in the woods at the bottom of the cliff.

Awful realization struck Hirata. “The kidnappers planted a false trail, to fool anyone who tried to follow them. They came as far as this dead end, then backtracked along the path they’d made.” Breathless from fatigue and outrage, Hirata exclaimed, “It’s the oldest trick in history. And I fell for it!” He cursed the kidnappers and his own gullibility. He kicked the cliff, venting his anger.

“We couldn’t have known it was a trick,” Marume said.

“We had to follow the trail because it might have led to the women,” Fukida said.

Refusing consolation, Hirata stalked off in a direction chosen at random. “What are you waiting for? We have to keep looking!”

The detectives ran after him, caught his arms, and restrained him. “It’s getting too dark,” Fukida said. “Pretty soon we won’t be able to see clues. We should go back to the highway, get our horses, and find someplace to spend the night.”

“Let me go!” Furious, Hirata struggled free of his comrades. “I have to find Midori.”

“If we wander around after dark, we’ll only get lost,” Marume pointed out. “The
sōsakan-sama
will have to send somebody to look for us. Lot of good that will do your wife and her friends. We must wait until morning.”

Hirata couldn’t bear to call off the search for a moment, let alone a whole night, while Midori was somewhere in the vast countryside, at the mercy of killers he believed had been hired by her insane father. Yet he had to admit that Marume and Fukida were right.

Reluctantly, Hirata accompanied the detectives back down the trail toward the Tōkaidō. “We’ll ride to the Odawara post station and find lodgings at an inn,” he said. “We can ask around town to see if anyone there has seen or heard anything that might help us find the kidnappers.”

The Edo Castle sickroom was isolated in a separate compound, situated low on the hill and far from the palace to protect the court from the spirits of disease and pollution from death. Inside the drab one-story building surrounded by a plank fence and tall pine trees, the Tokugawa physicians treated castle residents who were seriously ill or injured. A shrine beside the door contained a rock that served as a seat for protective Shinto deities. In front of the shrine burned a purifying fire. A sacred straw rope encircled offerings of food and drink, a wand festooned with paper strips, and a lock of woman’s hair to keep away demons.

Police Commissioner Hoshina, accompanied by two personal retainers, strode into the sickroom. At one end, apprentice physicians tended herbal infusions simmering in pots on a hearth. Screens that usually partitioned the building into separate chambers had been pushed against the walls to accommodate the large crowd of palace officials that had gathered. On the crowd’s fringes hovered maids and servants. Anxious conversation mingled with chanting and the rhythmic jangle of bells. The sickroom was hot from the fire and redolent with medicinal steam.

“Let me through,” Hoshina commanded the crowd.

People stepped aside, bowing to Hoshina as he passed through their midst. At the center of the crowd, on the
tatami
floor, a woman was lying upon a futon. A white sheet covered her body; a white bandage wrapped her head. Her face, with its prominent cheekbones, was deathly pale, the closed eyelids shadowed purple. Near her head, an elderly sorceress clad in white robes banged a tambourine to summon healing spirits, while a priest recited spells and waved a sword to banish evil. At her feet squatted two highway patrol captains. Dr. Kitano, the chief castle physician, knelt beside the prone woman.

“This is Lady Keisho-in’s maid, Suiren, who survived the massacre?” Hoshina asked the doctor.

“Yes, Honorable Police Commissioner,” said Dr. Kitano. He had a creased, intelligent face, and sparse gray hair knotted at his nape. He wore the dark blue coat of his profession.

Hoshina turned to the officials. “Leave us,” he said, annoyed that they’d come to gawk at Suiren, when he himself had important business with her. “You, too,” Hoshina told the maids. He gestured for the sorceress and priest to move away. “Not so loud.”

Soon he was alone with his own men, the highway soldiers and the apprentices, Dr. Kitano and the patient. While the priest and sorceress quietly continued their ritual in a corner, Hoshina crouched by Suiren. She lay still, apparently oblivious to the world. Her breath sighed slowly through her chapped, parted lips. Hoshina frowned in concern.

“Is she asleep?” he said to Dr. Kitano.

“She’s unconscious,” the physician said.

The news dismayed Hoshina. He addressed the patrol captains: “You brought her back to Edo?”

“Yes, Honorable Police Commissioner.” The captains, brawny and keen-featured, sweating in their armor, spoke in unison.

“How long has she been like this?” Hoshina said.

“Ever since we found her after the massacre,” said one captain.

“Describe how you found her,” Hoshina said.

“We were examining the bodies to see if there were any survivors,” said the other captain. “We thought she was dead. There was blood all over her, and she didn’t move.”

“But then we heard her moan. We rushed her to Odawara post station. The local doctor treated her,” continued the first captain. “He warned us that she was too sick to travel, but our superiors said she had to be taken to Edo. We were afraid she would die on the way here.”

Hoshina had hoped that a quick, easy interview with the witness would give him the identity of Lady Keisho-in’s kidnappers. Disappointed, he turned to Dr. Kitano. “Exactly what are her injuries?”

“I was just about to examine her.”

Dr. Kitano gently unwrapped the bandage from Suiren’s head, exposing hair clipped away from a large, indented purple bruise above her right temple. Frowning, he covered the wound, then drew back the sheet that blanketed Suiren and opened the white cotton kimono she wore. A white bandage swathed her abdomen. Dr. Kitano removed this. Underneath, a gash slanted from just below the left side of her rib cage to her navel. The wound, crusted with dried blood and stitched together with horsehair, oozed yellowish fluid. Hoshina winced; Dr. Kitano’s frown deepened. Suiren didn’t even stir.

“This is a very bad sword cut,” the physician said. “The head wound is also serious.”

Dr. Kitano touched the skin around Suiren’s sunken eyes, lifted the lids, and peered into her dull, sightless pupils, according to ancient Chinese medical technique. His fingers palpated her cheeks, rubbed her dry, brittle-looking hair, and squeezed her neck. He opened her mouth, revealing pale gums and tongue, then sniffed the air near her face. Finally, he clasped one wrist, then the other. The sorceress’s tambourine marked the lengthy passage of time as Dr. Kitano felt the pulses that corresponded to different internal organs. When he finished, he covered the maid and lifted his troubled gaze to Hoshina.

“She is suffering from a deficiency of blood, fluid, and
ki
—life energy,” Dr. Kitano said. “There is also internal festering and inflammation.”

“Can you heal her?” Hoshina said.

“I’ll do my best,” Dr. Kitano said, “but it will be a miracle if she lives.”

Hoshina cupped his chin in his hand and brooded over Suiren while the tambourine rang and the priest chanted. The maid represented a chance to save Lady Keisho-in and solidify Chamberlain Yanagisawa’s position in court long enough for the shogun to name Yoritomo his heir. But Hoshina had other, personal reasons for wanting Suiren to recover. If he could extract from her a clue that led to the kidnappers, he would win the shogun’s esteem and gratitude for himself. The
bakufu
would have to recognize him as a power in his own right, not just as Yanagisawa’s lover. And Yanagisawa would have to treat Hoshina with the respect he craved instead of always demeaning him.

“I must question Suiren about the kidnapping,” Hoshina told Dr. Kitano. “Wake her up.”

Concern shadowed the doctor’s eyes. “It is not advisable to disturb her. She needs rest.”

Hoshina experienced overwhelming impatience. Unless he could find the kidnappers and rescue Lady Keisho-in, he might never make his name in the
bakufu
. He and Yanagisawa might fall so far from the shogun’s grace that their plans for the future could never work. And failure, like success, posed serious personal ramifications for Hoshina. His lover admired skill and despised incompetence, and so far, Hoshina had managed to do everything Yanagisawa asked—but what if the kidnapping case proved more than he could handle? Would Yanagisawa cease to want him?

Even as Hoshina rued his love for a man as difficult yet alluring as the chamberlain, the thought of losing Yanagisawa stabbed terror into his heart.

“Suiren may be the only person who can give me information about who kidnapped the shogun’s mother,” Hoshina said. “It’s imperative that she speak to me.”

“She must not exert her vital energy, which is already depleted,” Dr. Kitano said. “And unconsciousness spares her terrible pain. Please give her time to grow stronger.”

“I don’t have time,” Hoshina said, angered by the physician’s calm, authoritative manner. “If Suiren dies without telling what she knows, we may never get Lady Keisho-in back or capture the criminals.” And Hoshina might never achieve his desires. He rose, squared his shoulders, and glared down at Dr. Kitano, asserting his rank. “I order you to awaken her now.”

Dr. Kitano’s composure wavered as he beheld Hoshina. “The honor code of my profession forbids me to endanger the life of my patient.”

Hoshina thought the man was less concerned about violating the code than afraid that he would kill the only witness to the kidnapping and the shogun would punish him. “I’ll take responsibility for whatever happens to her,” Hoshina said. Better that Suiren should die during an interrogation than before he ever tried to question her.

Nodding reluctantly, Dr. Kitano called to his apprentices: “Bring me some musk.”

An apprentice brought a ceramic cup full of coarse powder to Dr. Kitano. The acrid, animal scent of the musk tinged the air. Hoshina watched Dr. Kitano hold the cup near Suiren’s nose. As the maid inhaled, her nostrils quivered; her lips twitched in an involuntary grimace. Her eyelids fluttered slowly open. Hoshina nodded his approval to Dr. Kitano.

“Try not to upset her,” the physician warned.

Hoshina knelt beside the maid, leaning over her. “Suiren-
san
,” he said. Her blurry gaze wandered over his face. Fear enlivened her still features. “Don’t be afraid. You’re safe at home in the castle.” Hoshina spoke gently, stifling his excitement. “I’m the police commissioner of Edo.”

Breath eased from Suiren; her face relaxed. Her eyelids drooped, veiling her again in sleep.

“Give her another whiff of that musk,” Hoshina ordered Dr. Kitano.

The doctor complied with reluctance. “This medicine is very potent, and repeated doses are dangerous to persons in weak health.”

When Suiren smelled the musk, her eyes blinked wide. She looked as alarmed as though she’d forgotten, or hadn’t understood, who Hoshina was and what he’d told her.

“Do you remember traveling on the Tōkaidō with Lady Keisho-in?” Hoshina asked. “Do you remember being attacked?”

Her eyes clouded with confusion; then terror glazed them. A piteous groan shivered her body.

“Did you see who abducted Lady Keisho-in?” Hoshina pressed as his urgency mounted.

Groaning louder, the maid tossed her head from side to side. She writhed and gasped in pain. Sweat moistened her complexion, which had turned gray.

“It’s all right. Be still,” Dr. Kitano soothed, stroking her forehead. He fixed a stern gaze on Hoshina. “She can’t speak. And whatever she remembers is upsetting her. That’s enough.”

Hoshina ignored the physician. He wondered why Suiren had lived while everyone else in Keisho-in’s entourage had died. An idea occurred to him. “Are you the kidnappers’ accomplice?” he said, grasping Suiren by her shoulders. “Did you tell them that Lady Keisho-in would be traveling on the Tōkaidō? Did they spare your life as a reward?”

Suiren shrieked. The blank light of panic shone in her eyes. Thrashing under the sheet, she resembled a moth trying to escape a cocoon.

Dr. Kitano said to Hoshina, “If she doesn’t calm down, she’ll hurt herself. Leave her alone.” His voice was harsh with censure.

“Who kidnapped Lady Keisho-in?” Hoshina demanded. “Where did they take her? Tell me!”

Suiren’s mouth formed silent words, but her thrashing weakened. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and the lids closed. Her gasps subsided into slow, somnolent breathing as unconsciousness reclaimed her. Frantic because she’d appeared ready to talk, Hoshina shook the maid.

“Wake up!” he shouted.

“Stop!” Dr. Kitano dragged Hoshina away from Suiren. “You’ll hurt her!”