Shinju. Part 24

Dropping the reins, Sano hurried forward and caught him. At the same time, his mother appeared in the doorway. Her joyful greeting turned to an exclamation of dismay when she saw her husband's ashen face. With her help, Sano got the old man into the house and settled under warm quilts beside the charcoal brazier. Then he went back outside to stable the horse.

"Ichiro-chan, we were so worried, what happened to you?" his mother cried when he returned. "Where have you been?" She gazed in awe at Sano's clothes and swords, and at the treasure -laden saddlebags that he held. "What can be the meaning of this?"

Sano knelt before his parents. Tokugawa Tsunayoshi had given him permission to tell them the truth. After swearing them to secrecy, he did. "If anyone asks, you must say only that the shogun promoted me because of a service I did him while I was a yoriki," he added when he'd finished. That was the story that Yanagisawa and the elders had concocted. How neatly they'd secured his complicity in the deception.

His mother reacted to the news with delight. "Oh, Ichiro-chan, you are a hero! And what a wonderful reward for your courage!" Eyes teary, she beamed at him."Everything has turned out for the best."

Sano wished he could share her belief. He feared, without being able to say exactly why, that his new appointment would prove to be as much a punishment as a reward. Trying to push these disturbing thoughts away, he managed a smile for his mother. Then he turned to his father.

The old man only nodded and said, "You have brought honor to our family name, my son." But he sat straighter, visibly gaining color, strength, and vitality.

Laughing, Sano's mother rose. "With all this excitement, I've forgotten all about our meal!" She hurried out to the kitchen.

During their New Year's Day feast, Sano made himself eat to please his mother. Pain and fatigue robbed him of desire for the red beans and cold soup, the sweet spiced wine and other holiday treats, although he took great satisfaction from seeing his father eat with an unusually good appet.i.te that presaged an eventual return to health. All he wanted was to be alone, so that he could begin to make sense of all that had happened to him since he'd first heard of the shinju. He wanted to ponder the meaning of his alarming change of fortune, to understand the emotions now starting to surface through his initial shock and numbness.

Finally the long meal ended. Sano rose, bowing to his parents. "I must go to Wada-san's house and give him his new horse," he explained. Taking along parcels of mochi and tangerines to distribute among his neighbors, he escaped into the quiet streets.

He delivered the horse to Wada-san, who accepted it with awe and made him stay and celebrate his promotion with a drink. He called on his neighbors, but did no more than wish them a pleasant New Year. News traveled fast; they would know of his dubious luck soon enough. Afterward, he wandered through the streets on foot, carrying his one remaining gift parcel, his thoughts in a turmoil. Mulling over the events that had brought him to this moment, he wondered what he could have done differently. Could he have prevented a great tragedy without causing the lesser ones? Did his ultimate victory outweigh his many defeats? And why did he dread beginning his new servitude?

He wasn't surprised when he found himself outside Edo Jail once again. What he wanted was not solitude after all, but the right sort of company.

This time Dr. Ito did look surprised when he welcomed Sano at the door of his cell. After accepting Sano's gift and exchanging New Year's greetings, he said, "I must admit that I wondered whether I would ever see you again, my friend. Strange rumors have been circulating. What brings you here, obviously safe and-"' His eyebrows lifted as he saw the Tokugawa crests on Sano's garments. "And if not well, then at least with every appearance of being well off?"

Sano said nothing. He felt full to bursting with the need to bare his soul. But now that Dr. Ito stood waiting for him to explain the real purpose of his visit, he didn't know how to begin. How could he voice the complex fears, regrets, and doubts that tormented him?

Dr. Ito broke the silence. "I am glad you have come, Sano-san," he said. "You are just in time to partic.i.p.ate in my special New Year's Day ritual. Come with me."

He led the way through a series of guarded doors and pa.s.sages and into a courtyard where the guards' barracks stood at the base of the jail's outer wall. In one corner, a flight of stone steps led to the top of the wall and the western guard tower.

As they climbed the steps, Dr. Ito said, "This is the day on which I look outside these walls and enjoy the view of Edo and its environs."

Concern for his friend made Sano forget his own problems for the moment. "You mean you're allowed to see outside the prison only once a year?" he asked in dismay. In comparison with lifelong incarceration, his own ordeal seemed trivial and the shogun's reward an unmitigated blessing.

"Oh, no," Dr. Ito said with a wry laugh. "The guards would let me come up whenever I asked. I treat their ailments, and in return they grant me privileges that our ill.u.s.trious government would not. No, I myself choose to ration my pleasures. It gives me something to look forward to. And permits me less chance to reflect upon how much I have lost.

They reached the top of the stairway and walked along the broad, flat summit of the wall. The wind fluttered their robes as they looked out at the city.

"It is beautiful, is it not?" Dr. Ito said softly. "The beginning of the New Year is a time for hope, and my hope is that I will someday regain my freedom." He turned and fixed his penetrating gaze on Sano."But you did not come to hear about my troubles."

Encouraged by his friend's attentive and bracing presence, Sano told Dr. Ito how he'd spent Setsubun. Dr. Ito listened in silence. When Sano finished and turned to see his reaction, he nodded.

"And so you are a hero," he said. "But not, it would appear, in your own estimation."

The astute remark unleashed the torrent of emotion that Sano had been holding back. "Oh, yes, I'm a hero," he said bitterly. "I saved the shogun's life; I killed a traitor. Maybe I even prevented the collapse of the Tokugawa regime and five more centuries of civil war. I found the murderer and brought about her death. But three innocent people died because of me. Tsunehiko. Raiden. O-hisa. All sacrifices to what I considered a necessary search for the truth. To my vanity.

"If I'd known this would happen, I might have acted differently. I could have let the shinju remain a shinju. I've been a fool-a proud, clumsy fool-and rewarded for it!" Driven by unhappiness and self-disgust, he began to pace the wall.

Dr. Ito laid a gentle, restraining hand on his arm. "I can see why you feel as you do," he said. "But such self-reproach is useless. You have fulfilled your duty to the lord who commands your highest allegiance. Perhaps the others were fated to die, just as you were fated to save the shogun. You cannot know otherwise."

Sano shook his head. The doctor's sympathy and understanding gave him little comfort and no sense of absolution. But he began to grasp the reason why the prospect of serving as Tokugawa Tsunayoshi's special investigator disturbed him so much.

"When I saved the shogun's life-when I killed Lord Niu-I thought my troubles were over," he said, groping for the words. "This constant having to choose between personal desire and duty, when neither way seems entirely right or wrong. Pursuing inquiries without knowing where they will lead, or who will be hurt. Doing work for which I have no training and only instinct to guide me. Risking not only death, but also disgrace."

He laughed, a forlorn sound that came from the depths of his soul. "And what is this prize position that I've achieved, except a chance for more of the same? Now my life will never be any different."

"Really?"

Sano met his friend's cynical gaze and understood at once what Dr. Ito meant. With the shogun's authority behind him, he would have enormous power over other people's lives. He would have even greater opportunity to cause tragedy, to face danger and expose dangerous secrets. And the conflict within him would grow stronger. His need for the truth was undiminished, but woe upon him if he should disobey his new master's orders! Things were the same, yet different in a frightening way.

Sano nodded and sighed. "I see."

He stopped pacing to gaze out over the city. Above the snow-frosted rooftops of Nihonbashi rose the white tower of Edo Castle, where he'd spent one night and would spend many more. He avoided the daimyo district, instead turning to look at the western hills, the network of ca.n.a.ls that ran in all directions, and the thick, mud-colored vein of the Sumida River. He peered north toward Ueno and Yoshiwara, and south toward the theater district. He contemplated the tiny, foreshortened human figures moving through the streets. Finally he let his eyes follow the thin lines of the roads that led out of Edo to the distant provinces.

"Even now, something that is happening out there may require your investigation," Dr. Ito said, echoing Sano's thoughts.

"Yes." Sano walked to the edge of the wall. He felt himself hovering on the brink of an uncertain future. Perhaps an adversary more formidable than Lady or young Lord Niu awaited him.

"I do not envy you, Sano-san. You face a difficult challenge."

But unexpectedly, Sano's spirits lifted. The New Year was a season for hope, as Dr. Ito had said. It offered chances for him to atone for the deaths he'd caused. His wounds would heal. Time and experience would bring him wisdom that would aid him in his pursuit of the truth. He imagined saving lives, delivering more criminals to justice, conferring more honor upon his family name. A cautious optimism began to stir inside Sano, and with it, an eagerness to take up his new responsibilities as the shogun's special investigator.

"A challenge I accept," he said.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

I would like to thank the following people, each of whom helped make this book possible: George Alec Effinger, friend, mentor, and master science fiction writer. My agent, Pamela Gray Ahearn; my editor, David Rosenthal; my husband, Marty Rowland. And the members of my writer's workshop: Larry Barbe, Gary Bruton, Kim Campbell, O'Neil DeNoux, Debbie Hodgkinson, Jack Jerni-gan, Michael Keane, Mark McCandless, Marian Moore, John Webre, and Fritz Ziegler.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

LAURA JOH ROWLAND is a graduate of the University of Michigan. She has worked as a chemist, microbiologist, sanitary inspector, freelance artist, and quality engineer. She lives in New Orleans with her husband and their two cats.