Dragon's King Palace (6 page)

Feeble cries answered her. Reiko pushed herself upright and breathed deeply for a long moment until the nausea and dizziness ebbed. Then she crawled over to the figure nearest her and removed its hood and gag.

“Ugh!” Lady Keisho-in coughed and sputtered. Her frightened eyes blinked in her haggard, sunken face. “This feels like the worst hangover I’ve ever had. What’s happened to us? What is this place?”

“We’ve been abducted, drugged, and imprisoned,” Reiko said, glad that the shogun’s mother was a tough old woman capable of surviving the experience. “I don’t know where we are, except high up near a lake or sea in the middle of a forest.”

Lady Keisho-in made a clumsy attempt to rise. She said, “I need to make water.”

Reiko looked around the room. It was unfurnished, the floor made of bare planks, the walls surfaced with peeling white plaster. Two metal buckets sat in a corner. Reiko fetched a bucket and helped Lady Keisho-in sit upon it.

After she’d urinated, Keisho-in said, “I’m so thirsty. I must have a drink.”

Reiko also felt a terrible thirst that parched her mouth and throat. Searching the room, she found a ceramic jar of water in another corner. She and Keisho-in drank eagerly, though the water was lukewarm and tasted of minerals.

Groans emanated from the prone figure whose mountainous belly identified her as Midori. She’d rid herself of the hood and gag, and as Reiko hurried to her, she retched.

“I’m going to be sick,” she said.

Reiko dashed for a bucket. Midori vomited while Reiko held her head. Afterward, Midori sat up and clutched her stomach, hands frantically pressing, rubbing.

“My baby.” Fright thinned her voice, widened her eyes. “It hasn’t moved since I woke up.”

She and Reiko sat in momentary speechless terror that the opium—or the trauma suffered by Midori—had killed the unborn child. Then Midori began to sob.

“No, oh, please, no!” she wailed.

“The baby will be fine,” Reiko said, hoping she spoke the truth. “It’s just asleep. Lie down and rest. Don’t worry.”

After she settled Midori on the floor, Reiko hastened to Lady Yanagisawa. The woman lay quiet and still, legs straight, her hands fallen at her sides. When Reiko pulled the hood off her and yanked the cloth gag from her mouth, Lady Yanagisawa blinked up at Reiko. Her tongue slowly moistened her lips.

“Are you all right?” Reiko asked.

Lady Yanagisawa murmured, “Yes, thank you.”

Her face was strangely blank, her tone calm and polite as if this were an ordinary social occasion. She made a feeble motion to rise. When Reiko helped her sit up, she said, “I must be going home now, if you’ll excuse me.”

An eerie apprehension stole through Reiko.

“You can’t go home,” Keisho-in said to Lady Yanagisawa. “We’ve been kidnapped.” She peered quizzically into Lady Yanagisawa’s face. “Don’t you remember?”

Lady Yanagisawa frowned in bewilderment, shaking her head. “My apologies ... I don’t understand what you’re saying.” She seemed oblivious to their surroundings; she ignored Midori, who moaned and wept across the room. As Reiko and Keisho-in regarded Lady Yanagisawa with speechless confusion, she repeated, “I must be going home now. Kikuko-
chan
needs me.”

“I’m sorry, but that’s not possible,” Reiko said gently.

She explained what had happened, but the words seemed not to penetrate Lady Yanagisawa’s mind. The woman laboriously clambered to her feet. Gripping the walls for support, she stumbled blindly around the room. “Kikuko-
chan
,” she called. “Where are you?”

“The shock has driven her mad,” Keisho-in said.

Reiko feared that Keisho-in was right. Perhaps Lady Yanagisawa was only suffering from the aftereffects of the opium; but perhaps her already unbalanced mind wanted to deny what had happened, and its refusal to face facts had tipped her over the edge of insanity.

“Where are you, Kikuko-
chan
?” Anxiety inflected Lady Yanagisawa’s voice. “Come to Mama.”

Reiko hurried to Lady Yanagisawa and put her arms around the woman. “Kikuko-
chan
is safe at home. Please sit and compose yourself. You’re not well.”

Lady Yanagisawa pulled away and continued searching the room. “Kikuko-
chan
!” she called with increasing urgency.

“We need help,” Lady Keisho-in said. She staggered to the door, banged on it, and yelled, “Hey! We’ve got sick people in here. I order you to bring a physician!”

The banging echoed through what seemed like a deep well of empty space. No reply came. Midori’s sobs rose in hysteria.

“I wish I’d never gone on the trip,” she cried. “I wish I were at home.”

“This is intolerable,” Keisho-in declared, her fear giving way to anger. “My head is killing me. I need my tobacco pipe. It’s cold in here. The dust irritates my lungs.” She coughed and wheezed. “That I, the shogun’s mother, should be treated like this is an outrage!” She kicked the door. “Whoever you are, let us out at once!”

“I want my baby to be all right,” Midori wailed between sobs. “I want Hirata-
san
.”

Responsibility for her companions fell to Reiko with the burdensome weight of an avalanche. Though ill and terrified herself, she said, “We must stay calm. Getting upset will only make matters worse.”

Lady Keisho-in turned a vexed scowl on Reiko. “You’re so good at solving mysteries. Find us a way out of this.”

But Reiko knew how much her past success had depended on weapons; freedom of movement; access to information; and the power of Sano, his detective corps, and the Tokugawa regime behind her. Here, unarmed and trapped, what could she do to save her friends?

Nevertheless, determination and duty compelled Reiko to try. “Please be patient. I’ll get us out,” she said, feigning confidence.

Keisho-in squatted, folded her arms, and waited; Midori’s tears subsided. Lady Yanagisawa turned in slow, giddy circles, her gaze darting deliriously. The lap and rush of waves pervaded the uneasy quiet. Reiko went to the door and pushed. Its thick, heavy wood didn’t yield; pressure only rattled the bars on the other side. Her hands probed for cracks in the door’s surface and around the edge, to no avail. She moved to the windows and discovered that the shutters were nailed closed. She inserted her fingers into the narrow gaps between the rough wooden slats and tried to pry them apart. This gained her nothing except splinters in her skin.

Lady Yanagisawa collapsed, forlorn and whimpering, in a corner. “I can’t find my little girl,” she said. “Where can she have gone?”

Reiko examined the walls and floor. Both were marred with holes and fissures, but none large enough for escape. The building seemed ancient, in disrepair, but solid. Soon Reiko was exhausted, panting, and sweaty despite the cold. She stood in the center of the room and gazed upward. The ceiling was twice as high as she was tall. Moonlight shone through crevices amid the rafters. Failure drained her energy; she sank to her knees.

A pitiful wail came from Midori: “What’s to become of us?”

Lady Keisho-in jumped up, trotted around the room, and pounded on the shutters. “Help!” she shouted. “Somebody help!”

“Don’t panic,” Reiko begged. “We must save our strength and ready our wits for when we get an opportunity to escape.”

“We’ll never escape,” Midori said as more sobs convulsed her. “We’ll all die!”

Her hysteria infected Keisho-in, who clawed the door with her fingernails. “I must leave this place now! I can’t stand this anymore!”

Though Reiko attempted to reason with and comfort her friends, they paid no attention.

“Hirata-
san
!” Midori called, as if her voice could carry across the distance to her husband.

Keisho-in hurled herself repeatedly against the door, uttering foul curses that revealed her peasant origin; Lady Yanagisawa whimpered. Reiko had never felt so useless. When news of the massacre and abduction reached Edo, the shogun would surely order Sano to investigate this serious crime. Here Reiko was at the center of what might be the biggest case of Sano’s career; but all her talent and experience mattered not, for this time she was a victim instead of a detective.

Frustration, physical malaise, and terror that she would never again see Sano or Masahiro nearly overwhelmed Reiko. Tears spilled from her eyes; yet her samurai spirit blazed with anger toward her kidnappers and spurned the notion of giving up without a fight. Somehow she must deliver herself and her friends to safety, and the criminals to justice.

“Hirata-
san
!” Midori called again and again.

Her friend’s desperation resonated through Reiko. As much as she craved action, there seemed nothing she could do at present except wait for whatever was to come.

5

At dawn, a sun like an immense drop of blood floated up from the eastern hills outside Edo and shimmered in the white haze that veiled the sky. The discordant peals of bells in temples called priests to morning rites and roused the townspeople from slumber. As birds shrilled in the trees within Edo Castle’s stone walls, guards opened the massive ironclad gate. Out came Hirata with Detectives Fukida and Marume. Fukida was a brooding, serious samurai in his twenties; Marume, a decade older, had a jovial countenance and a powerful build. They and Hirata rode horses laden with saddlebags for their journey to the scene of the abduction. Disguised as
rōnin
, they wore old cotton robes, wide wicker hats, and no sign of their rank, in the hope that they could blend with other travelers and secretly track down the kidnappers.

Instead of following the main boulevard west to the Tōkaidō, Hirata led his men along a road into the
daimyo
district south of the castle. “One quick stop may save us a long search,” he said.

The heat of day vanquished night’s fleeting coolness as the city awakened to life. Mounted samurai thronged the wide avenue of
daimyo
estates, mansions surrounded by barracks constructed of white plaster walls decorated with black tiles. Porters delivered bales of rice and produce to feed thousands of
daimyo
clan members and retainers. Hirata, Marume, and Fukida dismounted outside an estate that numbered among the largest. The gate boasted red beams and a multitiered roof; a white banner above the portals bore a dragonfly crest. Hirata approached a sentry stationed in one of the twin guardhouses.

“Is Lord Niu home?” Hirata said.

The guard glanced at Hirata’s shabby garments, sneered, and said, “Who’s asking?” Then he did a double take as he recognized Hirata. He leapt to his feet and bowed. “My apologies. Yes, the Honorable Lord Niu is in.”

“I want to see him,” Hirata said in a voice tight with controlled anger.

“Certainly,” the guard said, and opened the gate. “I’ll tell him you’re here.”

“Never mind. I’ll tell him myself.”

Hirata stalked through the gate; Fukida and Marume followed him into a courtyard. Here samurai patrolled and guardrooms contained an arsenal of swords, spears, and lances. As they entered another gate that led beyond the officers’ barracks, Hirata burned with ill will toward Lord Niu.

History had lain the foundations for their strife. Lord Niu was an “outside
daimyo
,” whose clan had been defeated by the Tokugawa faction during the Battle of Sekigahara and forced to swear allegiance to the victors almost a hundred years ago. Hirata came from a Tokugawa vassal family. Although most other
daimyo
accepted Tokugawa rule without rancor, Lord Niu hated the exorbitant taxes he had to pay, and the laws that required him to spend four months each year in Edo and his family to stay there as hostages to his good behavior while he was home in his province. He also hated anyone associated with the regime—including Hirata. The
daimyo
had opposed the match between Hirata and Midori, who hadn’t bowed to his wishes as tradition required. Their love for each other—and the child that was already on the way before the marriage negotiations began—had necessitated desperate action.

Hirata had tricked Lord Niu into consenting to the marriage, and the
daimyo
had never forgiven him. Lord Niu had vowed to separate the couple and sworn vengeance against Hirata. All Hirata’s attempts to placate Lord Niu had met with failure. And because of what Hirata had learned about Lord Niu since marriage joined their clans, he believed the
daimyo
to be the best suspect in the massacre and kidnapping.

He and his men entered the mansion, a labyrinthine complex of buildings connected by covered corridors and intersecting tile roofs and raised on granite foundations. They burst into Lord Niu’s private chamber.

Lord Niu, clad in a dressing gown, knelt on the
tatami
while a valet shaved his crown with a long razor. Near them sat the
daimyo
’s chief retainer, a dour, homely man named Okita. Guards stood by the walls. Everyone looked up at Hirata and the detectives in surprise.

“Where is she?” demanded Hirata.

Lord Niu demanded, “What are you doing here?”

He was a short man in his fifties, with swarthy skin and broad shoulders. His most remarkable feature was the asymmetry of his face. The right half was a distorted reflection of the other. The left eye focused on Hirata and blazed with hatred; the right contemplated distant space.

“I want to know where my wife is,” Hirata said, planting himself in front of his father-in-law, despite the creeping uneasiness that Lord Niu always inspired in him. Detectives Marume and Fukida stood behind Hirata.

“How should I know?” Lord Niu regarded Hirata with puzzlement and hostility. “You stole her from me. It’s up to you to keep track of her. Why do you come in here at this early hour, without my permission, to ask ridiculous questions?”

Had anyone else reacted this way, Hirata might have believed he was telling the truth, but Lord Niu was crafty and dishonest. “Midori, Lady Keisho-in, Lady Yanagisawa, and Lady Reiko were abducted yesterday,” Hirata said.

“What?” Lord Niu’s eyebrows shot up; he leaned forward. “How did this happen?”