Dragon's King Palace (35 page)

More annoyed than enlightened, the shogun said, “Why should I care that she’s, ahh, conscious? Why do you, ahh, bother me about her?”

“There is a possibility that Suiren heard or saw something that could help us determine where the kidnappers took your honorable mother,” Uemori interjected.

“Ahh. And now that she’s conscious, she can, ahh, tell us what she knows.” Comprehension quickly gave way to anxiety. “
Sōsakan
Sano must go to her at once!” Then recollection struck the shogun. “But Sano-
san
is out tracking down Dannoshin Minoru. So is Chamberlain Yanagisawa.” The shogun pointed at one of his secretaries.

“Go fetch them.”

As the secretary started to obey, Uemori said, “With all due respect, Your Excellency, perhaps the chamberlain and
sōsakan-sama
should be allowed to finish what they’re doing.”

The shogun chewed his lip, humbled by Uemori’s better judgment. “Never mind,” he told the secretary.

“Someone else could question the maid,” Uemori said.

“Ahh. Yes. You are right,” the shogun said, then asked in bewilderment, “But who shall I send? I can’t entrust such an important task to just anyone.”

Out of nowhere came a sudden, novel idea:
Why don’t I go myself?
So disconcerted was the shogun that his jaw dropped. Yet the idea seemed the perfect solution, because interrogating the maid would satisfy his desire for action. While his audience watched him as if wondering what had gotten into him, he stepped toward the edge of the dais… only to hesitate. Talking to a servant was beneath him. He must uphold the dignity of his rank and let his underlings do his dirty work. Wishing Sano and Yanagisawa were here to spare him this dilemma, he started to step back, but the thought of them arrested him.

They had taken charge of the kidnapping investigation, but why should they? It was his mother who was in danger, not theirs. Tokugawa Tsunayoshi experienced a rare pang of resentment toward Yanagisawa and Sano. From time to time he had a sneaking suspicion that they thought they were smarter than he, and more fit to make important decisions. He recalled that when the ransom demand came, he’d at first wanted to execute Police Commissioner Hoshina, then changed his mind ... or had he? Could Sano have changed it for him, with Yanagisawa’s collusion? The shogun wondered how many of his other decisions they’d influenced. Resentment and suspicion turned to anger at his trusted chamberlain and
sōsakan-sama
. Well, he wouldn’t leave matters to them anymore. It was time to stand on his own two feet.

“This meeting is, ahh, adjourned,” he said. Hopping off the dais, he pointed at his chief attendants and Dr. Kitano. “Come with me.”

“Where are you going, Your Excellency?” Uemori said, obviously startled.

“To the, ahh, sickroom to question Suiren.” As everyone stared in amazement, the shogun strode regally from the chamber.

Righteous indignation carried him out of the palace, through the castle grounds and passageways, to the threshold of the sickroom. There, sudden apprehension halted him and his retinue at the shrine outside the low, thatched building. The sickroom was haunted by spirits of disease and polluted by the deaths that had occurred there. The shogun, whose health was delicate, felt dizzy and sick to his stomach at the thought of entering. But enter he must, for his mother’s sake.

He took a clean white cloth from under his sash and tied it over the lower half of his face to prevent the bad spirits and contamination from getting in his nose or mouth. “Let us, ahh, proceed,” he said.

His chief attendant opened the door of the sickroom, walked in, and announced, “His Excellency the Shogun has arrived.”

Faltering into the room, the shogun saw physicians and apprentices staring in shock to see him in this place where he’d never come. They fell to their knees and bowed. The shogun approached the woman who lay in the bed.

“You must be, ahh, Suiren,” the shogun said. He crouched some distance from her, because he could read death in her wasted body and unwholesome pallor.

She gazed up at him in awe. “Your presence does me an honor, Your Excellency,” she whispered in a low, cracked voice.

With his retinue and the doctors all watching him, the shogun felt self-conscious and uncertain because he’d never before questioned a witness about a crime. “Do you remember how you, ahh, got hurt?” he ventured.

Suiren nodded weakly. “Some men attacked us on the highway. They killed the troops and attendants. They took Lady Keisho-in.” Tears welled in her eyes.

At least she hadn’t lost her memory, the shogun thought. Perhaps this wouldn’t be so difficult. “I want you to tell me everything that happened during the, ahh, attack,” he said.

The maid poured out a tale of carnage and terror, her words frequently halted by weeping and pauses to muster her strength. “I was pulled out of my palanquin. A man stabbed me. I fell and must have hit my head and fainted. When I woke up, I was lying in a pool of blood. There were dead bodies all around. I saw the men emptying the trunks. Lady Keisho-in, Lady Yanagisawa, Lady Reiko, and Lady Midori were lying by the road. They seemed to be asleep. The men put them inside the trunks.”

Envisioning his mother treated like cargo, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi gasped with outrage.

“I tried to crawl toward the men and stop them, but I was too weak.” Sobs wracked Suiren. “How I wish I could have saved Lady Keisho-in!”

“Here is your, ahh, chance to help me save her,” the shogun said. “Did the men say anything to, ahh, indicate where they were taking my mother?”

Weariness overlaid Suiren’s features like a veil. Her voice dropped to an almost incomprehensible murmur: “There was an argument. Some of them complained… the trunks were too heavy to carry all the way to… ” She breathed the last word.

“Izu!” the shogun interpreted. “They were going to Izu!” Behind his facecloth he grinned with glee because he’d found out something that Yanagisawa and Sano hadn’t.

“The leader… told some others to hire porters to help carry the trunks,” Suiren said. “They asked how… how to find the place where they would all meet again.” Suiren paused, as if listening to echoes from the past. “. . . main highway south through Izu… west on the crossroad at the Jizo shrine ... a lake with a castle on an island… ”

Such joy overwhelmed the shogun that he chortled and clapped his hands. Now he knew precisely where to find his mother! He couldn’t wait to see Sano’s and Yanagisawa’s faces when he told them.

“You’ve done me a, ahh, great service,” he said, impulsively leaning over to pat Suiren’s head. “I will, ahh, reward you with anything you ask.”

Suiren closed her eyes and sighed, weakened by the effort she’d expended on speech. “All I ask is for Lady Keisho-in to come home,” she murmured. “Then I can die happy.”

The shogun belatedly remembered the danger of disease and pollution. He bolted from the sickroom, his retinue in tow. Outside, he removed his facecloth, wiped his hands on it, and prayed that his health wouldn’t suffer. Yet he was proud that he’d talked to Suiren, and taking this initiative had whetted his appetite for more. He was tired of waiting for others to act on his behalf, and fed up with complicated strategies for hunting the Dragon King. The reasons for delay fled his mind, as did his usual indecisiveness. For once Tokugawa Tsunayoshi knew exactly what to do next.

Two guards eased Midori down the tower stairs and carried her on a litter through the forest. More guards herded Reiko, Lady Yanagisawa, and Keisho-in behind her in the rain and locked them inside a wing of the main palace. The room was dingy and smelled of the dampness and mold that discolored its bare walls, but it was furnished with tattered cushions, frayed
tatami
, enough bedding for all the women, a basin of hot water, and a pile of rags. An undamaged roof kept out the rain.

As Reiko helped the other women settle Midori on a futon, she breathed a prayer of thanks that the Dragon King had decided to relocate them. She glanced out the barred windows at the gray, stormy lake, visible through the trees. Here, on ground level and nearer to the boats, freedom beckoned. But devising an escape would have to wait.

Midori shrieked, convulsed, and wept harder with each strengthening pain. She sat up, huffed, bore down, and grunted again and again, then fell back on the bed.

“It hurts so much,” she cried. Terror and panic filled her eyes. “I can’t bear any more!”

“Calm yourself,” Reiko said, pressing on Midori’s spinal potent points. But only delivering the baby would bring relief. She stifled her fear that Midori would succumb to the agony. “It will be over soon.”

Lady Yanagisawa sat helplessly wringing her hands. Keisho-in peered between Midori’s humped legs and exclaimed, “Look! The baby is coming!”

Reiko saw a small, round portion of the infant’s head, covered by fuzzy black hair and bloody, oozing fluid, at the mouth of Midori’s womanhood. “Push,” she urged Midori.

But Midori’s labors weakened even while the pains wracked her. She strained, but feebly. “It won’t come out!” Her voice rose in hysteria. “It’s stuck!”

“Try a little harder,” Reiko begged.

“I can’t!” A frenzy of sobbing and thrashing betook Midori. “I’m going to die! Oh no, oh no, oh no!”

“Oh, for the grace of Buddha,” Lady Keisho-in said, grimacing in annoyance.

She drew back her hand and slapped Midori hard on the cheek. The blow abruptly silenced Midori. She stared in gasping, wounded surprise at Keisho-in.

“You’re going to have this baby whether you like it or not,” Keisho-in said. “Quit your silly whining. Show some courage.” She knelt at Midori’s feet and grasped her hands. “Now
push
!”

For once she’d used her authority to good purpose. Midori wheezed in a deep breath. Clinging to Keisho-in’s hands like a rider trying to rein in a galloping horse, she raised herself forward. She pushed so hard that her face turned bright red and a savage growl arose from her throat.

“Good!” Keisho-in said. “Again!”

Midori clung, pushed, and growled. Reiko could hardly believe that Keisho-in had risen above her bad temper and given Midori the will to succeed. Now Midori strained with all her might. She screamed in triumph and release. Out of her slid the baby, its translucent pink skin streaked with blood and lined with blue veins, its eyes closed.

Keisho-in, Reiko, and Lady Yanagisawa cheered. While Midori lay panting and exhausted, Keisho-in held up the baby and said, “Look, you have a little girl.”

The baby opened her mouth, and a loud wail emerged. Her tiny hands flexed. Midori gazed at her with awestruck love. Reiko belatedly noticed three guards standing in the open door, gaping at the scene.

“Don’t just stand there, someone bring a dagger and cut the cord,” Lady Keisho-in ordered them.

A guard complied; then he and his comrades departed. Keisho-in laid the child at Midori’s breast. While Midori cuddled her, the child suckled.

“She’s so beautiful,” Midori murmured.

Tears stung Reiko’s eyes as she and Lady Yanagisawa smiled. Keisho-in said, “Here comes the afterbirth.”

The shared miracle of a new life raised their downcast spirits; new hope for the future banished the pall of fear, misery, and danger. But Midori’s face crumpled. She began sobbing as if heartbroken.

“What’s wrong?” Reiko said.

“I wish Hirata-
san
could see his daughter,” Midori cried. “Maybe he never will.”

Harsh reality shattered the joyous mood. Reiko, Lady Yanagisawa, and Keisho-in bowed their heads, unable to look at the innocent child that had been born into peril. Even while Reiko remembered the nearby boats, she knew that running away would be more difficult now than ever, with the fragile newborn. And since she couldn’t count on anyone to rescue her and her companions before they came to harm, their lives depended on her manipulating the Dragon King into freeing them.

“Your Excellency, we bring good news,” said Chamberlain Yanagisawa. He and Sano knelt before the dais in the audience hall and bowed to the shogun. “We’ve found proof that Dannoshin Minoru is the Dragon King. And we’ve discovered the location of a piece of property he owns. We believe he has imprisoned your mother there.”

“You’re too late!” the shogun crowed. There was rosy color in his usually pale cheeks, and an uncharacteristic sparkle in his eyes. “I, ahh, already know!” Hopping up and down in a little dance of triumph, he said, “The Dragon King has taken my mother to a castle on an island in a lake on the Izu Peninsula.”

Sano reared back in surprise to hear the shogun name the site that he and Yanagisawa had just found on the map in the archives. He felt his mouth open and a frown contract his forehead. He glanced sideways and saw Yanagisawa reacting in the same manner.

“How did you find out?” Completely flummoxed for once in his life, Yanagisawa stared at the shogun.

“The maid Suiren is conscious,” the shogun said. “I, ahh, talked to her.” He giggled in delight at Yanagisawa’s and Sano’s discomposure; his attendants hid smiles. “She told me she’d overheard the, ahh, kidnappers say where they were going.”

Sano and Yanagisawa exchanged a look of amazement. That their lord should take such initiative was something Sano had never expected. That Suiren should turn out to possess vital information, after he’d virtually given up hope on her, was almost beyond belief.

“Well,” Yanagisawa said, recovering his poise. “Now that we all know who and where the Dragon King is, I ask that Your Excellency allow me to lead my troops on an expedition to rescue Lady Keisho-in.”

“You’re too late again!” The shogun gleefully beheld Sano and Yanagisawa. “I’ve already sent out the army. They’re riding toward Izu at this moment.”

Now Sano’s amazement turned to horror. There was another reason he hadn’t wanted the army involved, aside from the fact that the Dragon King had threatened to kill the hostages if he were pursued.

Tokugawa soldiers were good at keeping order because their sheer numbers inspired fear among the public, and good at ganging up against troublemakers in the streets; but most of them had no battle experience. Their commanders had only commanded wars on the martial arts training ground. Sano didn’t trust the army with a mission that required superior fighting skill or strategy. When they got to Izu, they wouldn’t bother negotiating for the hostages’ freedom; they would simply overrun the island. Even if they vastly outnumbered the defense, the Black Lotus mercenaries could kill enough Tokugawa troops and stave off defeat long enough for Dannoshin to kill Lady Keisho-in, Lady Yanagisawa, Midori, and Reiko. There was only one way to prevent this calamity.