Dragon's King Palace (38 page)

He disappeared from view. Midori shrieked in terror. As Keisho-in shouted curses after Ota and enfolded Midori and the baby in her arms, Lady Yanagisawa turned to Reiko. “What shall we do?” she said anxiously. “Wait for someone to rescue us?”

“We can’t.” Reiko sat mired in the awful conviction that they would all die unless they got away before the Dragon King discovered that he wasn’t going to get the revenge he wanted. But Ota made sneaking out of their prison impossible. An even worse dread filled Reiko as her mind lit on an alternative.

“I can think of only one way to free us,” she whispered. “The next time I’m with the Dragon King, I must steal his sword and kill him. Then I must get us all out of the palace and into the boats.”

Lady Yanagisawa nodded, her faith in Reiko shining in her eyes. But Reiko experienced a dire, sinking sensation because she also could think of only one way to conquer the Dragon King. It would surely bring her ruination. And even if she defeated him, she still must contend with Ota and any other guards who tried to prevent her and her friends from leaving.

“Your life is in danger, and I haven’t even named you yet,” Midori lamented to the baby clasped against her bosom. Tradition required that parents wait until the sixth day after the birth to name a child and celebrate its arrival. “Oh, Reiko-
san
, will we be home for her naming day?”

As Reiko beheld Midori and the baby, resignation spread through her, as if turning the blood in her veins to stone. The need to save the innocent child outweighed all the hazards and sacrifices associated with her new plot against the Dragon King.

“I promise we’ll be home by then,” Reiko said.

As Hirata, Marume, and Fukida rounded the curve of the clearing, the castle’s revolving view presented more wings, guarded by more sentries. Then Hirata saw a section where roofs had caved in on structures with gaping holes in the walls and trees growing out of the rooms. Vegetation enmeshed scattered rubble in what appeared to be an utter, deserted ruin that the kidnappers neglected to guard.

“Let’s try there,” Hirata said.

They sprinted across the narrow strip of open ground in the clearing and darted into the ruins. They thrashed through high weeds and stumbled amid debris. Fukida tripped on a pile of wreckage and fell; Marume yanked him to his feet. As they circumnavigated a corner formed by two broken walls on an exposed foundation, sudden light dazzled Hirata.

Toward him marched a brawny young samurai, carrying a lantern. Hirata, Fukida, and Marume faltered to a standstill. The samurai saw them and froze; his eyes registered that they were intruders. He drew his sword. His mouth opened to call his comrades.

Marume lunged. He lashed out his sword. It cut the samurai across the throat. A look of horror came over his face as the wound spurted blood. He gurgled, and the lantern dropped from his hand. He collapsed dead on the ground.

Hirata and the detectives stared at the corpse, then each other, unnerved by the sudden violence and their narrow escape. Then Hirata took a closer look at the dead man’s face. A disturbing chord resounded through him because he didn’t recognize the man—this wasn’t one of Lord Niu’s. Hirata reasoned that he didn’t know all his father-in-law’s many retainers, but he felt increasing doubt that the
daimyo
was responsible for the kidnapping.

“We should hide the body,” said Fukida.

Before he or Hirata or Marume could move, someone nearby called, “What was that noise? Ibe-
san
, are you there?”

Footsteps hurried toward Hirata and his comrades. They backed away from the corpse and sped around the wrecked building. Huddling at its base, they peered around the corner and watched another young samurai kneel beside the corpse.

“Ibe-
san
! What happened?” he exclaimed, holding his lantern near his comrade’s lifeless face. He looked fearfully around him. Hirata saw that this man, too, was unknown to him. Then the samurai took off running. “Ibe’s been killed!” he shouted. “Someone has invaded the island!”

The night came alive with answering voices and sounds of motion. Men streamed out from the castle grounds. A bolt of horror stunned Hirata. He felt Marume and Fukida tense beside him as their worst fears became reality.

“What do we do now?” Marume said.

Shouts rang out as the kidnappers raised the alarm. “We run,” Hirata said.

They raced out of the ruins, crossed the clearing, and plunged into the woods. Torchlights flashed; shadowy figures came speeding toward them. They zigzagged between trees, ducking beneath foliage, crouching to avoid notice as their pursuers multiplied in number. Hirata wished with all his heart that he had obeyed Sano’s orders rather than attempted the rescue himself. If he’d done his duty, he would have arrived back in Edo by now and reported the location of the kidnappers. Sano could have sent the whole detective corps to rescue the women. But instead, Hirata was running for his life and was no use to Midori. If he, Marume, and Fukida got caught, there would be no one to tell Sano where the women were. Hirata bitterly regretted his choice.

“We have to get across the lake,” he said, “but our raft is too far away. Let’s steal the boats and maroon the kidnappers.”

They raced toward the shore. Arrows whizzed through the air, striking ground and tree trunks near their feet. When they reached the forest’s edge, they saw two men standing on the dock, guarding the boats. Winded and panting, they veered back into the forest.

“We can swim to the mainland,” Fukida said.

But their pursuers wove a tightening net around the island, chasing them away from the shores. They found themselves in the woods near the main palace. Skeletal guard turrets protruded from a crumbled wall. Four sentries loitered outside a gateway that led to grounds filled with a jungle of shrubbery. Beyond the grounds, the moon floated above the palace. Carved metal dragons set in the roof gables proclaimed a silent warning. Light shone through grills that covered the second-story windows. Hirata deduced that this was the kidnappers’ stronghold, a place to avoid. But exhaustion forced him and Marume and Fukida to stop and rest.

“Let’s hide someplace until they think we’ve escaped,” he said.

Just then, runners came crashing through the forest behind them. Instinctively they fell flat on the ground and lay still. Two men galloped right past Hirata’s face. Their feet kicked damp leaves onto him. They burst through the clearing and rushed into the palace. Hirata raised his head and saw them standing inside the dimly lit entranceway, with a third man who’d joined them.

“We have bad news,” Hirata heard one of the arrivals say in a breathless voice.

“What is it?” The third man’s voice was gruff, tinged with irritation and anxiety.

“There are trespassers on the island.”

“Who are they?” demanded the gruff-voiced man, who seemed to be the leader

“We don’t know.”

The leader said, “How do you know they’re here?”

“They killed one of our men. And we found a raft hidden in the forest near the shore.”

Hirata learned that life could go from bad to worse in a mere instant. The kidnappers not only knew that he and Marume and Fukida were here; they’d discovered his means of conveying the women to safety. His hope of trying another rescue attempt later died within him.

“I’ve got two men hiding near the raft, in case the trespassers go back to it,” said the man who’d brought the news.

“Round up all the others,” the leader said, his manner curt and authoritative. “I want everyone out searching.”

Furthermore, Hirata didn’t recognize the leader’s voice. This fact confirmed that someone other than Lord Niu had organized the kidnapping. Lord Niu might have hired a mercenary army to help, but he was smart enough not to delegate command of such a risky operation to somebody other than one of his longtime trusted vassals. Hirata knew all those, and the man in the castle wasn’t one. Now Hirata absorbed the full, horrific truth about his predicament.

The kidnapping wasn’t just a scheme by his father-in-law. It was part of something he couldn’t begin to understand. He and Marume and Fukida were trapped on the island by a stranger with unknown motives even more evil than Lord Niu’s.

“Capture the trespassers and bring them to me,” said the leader.

The men hastened from the castle. But even as the consequences of his actions appalled him, Hirata postponed his self-recriminations. There was no use wishing he’d done what he should have. There seemed but one remedy.

“We’ll have to kill off the kidnappers,” Hirata said, “until there’s few enough of them left that we can sneak inside the palace, get the women, and escape.”

“Or until the kidnappers catch us,” Marume and Fukida said in unison.

29

A storm the next day assailed the Tōkaidō, where Sano and his detective corps trotted on horseback behind Chamberlain Yanagisawa and his elite squadron of fighters, bound for the Dragon King’s palace. Gusts of wind lashed streaming rain against the two hundred mounted men. Thunder boomed across distant hills obscured by mist; lightning crazed the sky above the cypress woods that bordered the highway. Sano and his comrades rode hunched against the downpour. Water cascaded off the brim of his wide wicker hat, pelted his face, drenched his cloak and armor. The horses’ hooves splashed in puddles, flung up mud. But discomfort bothered Sano less than did the fact that although he and Yanagisawa had gathered their forces and headed west toward the Izu Peninsula as soon as the shogun had granted them permission, they’d made poor progress.

They’d traveled all yesterday evening and last night, and they’d barely passed Oiso, the halfway point of their journey. Traffic outside Edo and steep stretches of road along the sea had hindered them, although Chamberlain Yanagisawa’s authority had sped them through inspections at checkpoints. Riding any faster would tire the horses, and the village stables didn’t have enough fresh mounts for rent. And the twenty small wooden boats, brought for ferrying troops, guns, and ammunition to the island, further precluded speed.

The boats had traveled on oxcarts for the early part of the trip, but the carts had been abandoned because they couldn’t cross the rivers. Now foot soldiers carried the boats over their heads. The Tokugawa policy that prohibited bridges along the main highways, restricted troop movement, and prevented rebellions had backfired on the rescue mission. At this rate, the mission wouldn’t reach the island until tomorrow. Sano feared that the delay would cost Reiko, Midori, Keisho-in, and Lady Yanagisawa their lives. If only he’d discovered the Dragon King’s identity and whereabouts sooner, or if Hirata had brought the information! Sano wondered what had become of Hirata, Marume, and Fukida.

Suddenly he heard shouts ring out above the thunder. The procession slowed to a halt.

“Why are we stopping?” he said to Detective Inoue, who rode at his side.

Inoue squinted into the pouring rain. “It looks like there’s someone blocking the road.”

Sano stood in the stirrups, peered impatiently over Yanagisawa’s troops, and saw banners emblazoned with the Tokugawa crest. “It’s the army,” he said. “We’ve caught up with the forces that the shogun sent.”

He was glad the army hadn’t yet reached Izu and he and Chamberlain Yanagisawa could prevent its siege of the Dragon King. But the procession remained stopped. Angry voices rose from a stir between tihe procession and the army; mutters of confusion spread through the ranks. Eager to learn the cause of the delay, Sano steered his horse past the troops to the front of the procession. There he found Yanagisawa, astride a black stallion and clad in dripping rain gear, facing off against a bulbous mounted samurai who wore a helmet crowned with golden horns. Sano recognized the samurai as General Isogai, supreme commander of the Tokugawa army.

“I’m taking over the rescue expedition,” Chamberlain Yanagisawa shouted. He gestured at the army, some thousand strong, waiting on the road ahead of him and General Isogai. “Turn your troops around. Go home.”

“I’ll do no such thing,” the general retorted. “The shogun has sent us to rescue his mother, and I intend to do my duty.”

“You’ll do as I say, or be sorry later,” Yanagisawa said.

General Isogai laughed scornfully. “I don’t take orders from you. And in case you haven’t noticed, your threats don’t carry as much weight these days.” Galloping to the head of his army, he called, “Onward!”

The army surged down the highway. Yanagisawa stared after it in helpless rage. Sano experienced disbelief that anyone would treat the chamberlain so rudely, shock that Yanagisawa seemed to have lost much power, and awareness that the kidnapping had spawned unexpected repercussions, which weren’t yet common knowledge outside the
bakufu
’s top echelon.

Then Yanagisawa yelled to his troops, “Overtake the army!”

His men charged past Sano. Galloping horses buffeted him until he found himself at the front of his own detectives and joined the wild chase. His and Yanagisawa’s forces streamed up the road’s sloping banks around the army and plowed through its ranks. Skirmishes erupted. Yanagisawa’s squadron broke free from the pack and sped away. Sano and his detectives knocked soldiers off their horses, fended off grabbing hands, cleared the way for the men carrying the boats, and followed Yanagisawa.

Lightning stabbed a jagged silver line down the heavens; thunder shook the earth. Murderous yells came from the army, in hot pursuit but falling behind. Through the rainy landscape Sano and Yanagisawa hastened, until they reached the Sakawa River. The rain had swelled the river into a rushing torrent that overflowed the stone dikes. Perilous rapids stretched as far as Sano could see in either direction. The ferrymen who usually rowed travelers to the opposite bank were absent.

“We’ll ride the horses and row our own boats across,” said Yanagisawa.

At his orders, their army plunged into the river. The water became a roiling tumult of men and horses. Some riders were swept off their mounts and carried downstream. The men in the boats fought to row against the current. Sano urged his horse into the river. While the horse trod the water, Sano felt the current tugging at them. Cold waves sloshed over his lap. Midway across, he heard hoofbeats pounding on the road behind him. He looked around, saw mounted troops approaching, and thought the army had caught up. Then he noticed the banner carried by the lead rider. Surprise beset Sano, for the banner bore a dragonfly symbol instead of the Tokugawa crest.