He was his enemy; his enemy was him.
Although their union improved his defenses, it played havoc with his offensive. Every slash that Sano launched, Yanagisawa avoided. Sano knew he was the superior fighter, but he couldn’t score a single cut. They grew breathless from attacking each other and missing. Sano saw, from the corner of his eye, that many of the daimyo, the officials, and their men had joined the battle. Most were fighting Yanagisawa’s troops, but others fought Sano’s. Yanagisawa had won many allies. Taking count would have given Sano a clear lie of the political land, but he was too caught up in his and Yanagisawa’s battle.
They circled each other around a gibbet, their blades whistling around the posts. They were both panting and sweating. If one or the other didn’t win soon, they would both die of exhaustion. Faster and faster Sano wielded his sword. Faster and faster Yanagisawa parried. Their blades were a metallic whir between them. Yanagisawa’s face tightened into a snarl, a mirror of Sano’s own face. Sano felt their blows ring through his bones. His wrists, elbows, and shoulders grew sore from twisting and flexing. He could feel the same pain echo from Yanagisawa’s joints. His sense of himself as a separate individual blurred.
Sano mustered his fading energy, put all his strength into each cut. He felt the spasm of a strained tendon in Yanagisawa’s arm, felt it in his own, heard the pained cry from both their mouths. Yanagisawa let go of his sword, which spun away through the air. Sano’s foot slipped in a patch of slime. Before he could regain his balance, Yanagisawa hurled himself at Sano. Together they fell.
They crashed to the ground. Yanagisawa landed on top of Sano and grabbed for Sano’s sword. His hands clawed Sano’s, trying to pry them off the hilt. As Sano fought Yanagisawa for control of the weapon, they rolled across the fetid dirt while horses stomped and riders battled around them. Their faces were so close that Sano could see his reflection in Yanagisawa’s eyeballs. They gasped each other’s breath. Locked with Yanagisawa in an embrace more intimate than sex with a woman, Sano felt their muscles straining, their pulses pounding with the same fast, furious rhythm, the heat in their blood rising.
It no longer mattered who killed whom. Sano gave up the notion that he deserved to win because he was good and Yanagisawa evil.
They were two incarnations of the same being.
Still, Sano and Yanagisawa grappled, struggled, fought with all their savage might. Stripped of individuality, reduced to the most basic principle of combat, they must kill or be killed.
A high-pitched cry rang out above the noise: “I order you all to cease fighting!”
Sano barely recognized the shogun’s voice. He threw himself onto Yanagisawa, who writhed and bucked under his weight. A tiny part of Sano’s awareness registered that the shogun stood on his palanquin, waving his arms and shouting, “I don’t like fights. Stop at once!”
Across the field, combatants retreated. The shogun’s word was law. Only Sano and Yanagisawa ignored his command. The sword was between them, their hands clenched around the hilt under their chins, the blade all that separated their faces. Sano forced the blade down toward Yanagisawa, who pushed it up at him. They clenched their teeth, grunted, and strained. They both knew the end was near for somebody.
Men crowded around them. Sano was seized and pulled off Yanagisawa. The sword ripped out of Yanagisawa’s hands and came away in Sano’s. Their mystical union snapped like a rope stretched too tight. Detectives Marume and Fukida wrested the sword away from Sano. Other men restrained Yanagisawa, who struggled to attack Sano. As they gasped for breath and glared at each other through the sweat dripping into their eyes, the shogun minced into the space between them. Placing one hand on Yanagisawa’s heaving chest and the other on Sano’s, he said, “Whatever your, ahh, quarrel is, you can settle it later.”
He laughed with joy as he announced to the crowd, “My beloved Yoritomo-san is alive. Chamberlain Sano is innocent, and my dear old friend Yanagisawa-san is home! Let’s all go back to the castle and celebrate!”
The celebration lasted five days.
Spring came. Gentle rains put out the fires that had plagued Edo and washed the air clean of smoke. Cherry trees all over town burst into dazzling pink bloom.
Inside the castle, the shogun and his guests feasted at a continuous banquet. Musicians, dancing girls, acrobats, jugglers, and magicians entertained. Theater troupes performed plays. The revelry spilled into the garden, where lanterns hung from the blossoming cherry trees. Men sneaked off for a few hours of sleep here and there, but nobody dared stay away for long. The shogun was in his finest, silliest form as he led singing, poetry-reciting, and drinking contests, Yoritomo at his side.
He didn’t care that Lord Matsudaira, the traitor, was dead.
After the battle at the execution ground, Sano had taken his detectives and a squadron of troops to confront Lord Matsudaira. Sano had intended to force his enemy to remove the assassins from his house. Later, he would persuade the shogun to execute Lord Matsudaira. He was sure Yanagisawa would help him with that, even though they were bitter foes once again. But when Sano arrived at Lord Matsudaira’s estate, he discovered that those efforts would be unnecessary.
The gates stood open; Matsudaira troops from all over the castle poured inside. Leaping from his horse, Sano asked the sentries, “What’s going on here?”
“Our master has committed seppuku,” one of the men said. Tears ran down his face.
Sano was disconcerted, yet not really surprised. “Why?”
“His spirits were broken by his arrest. He saw himself going down. And when he learned that Yanagisawa is back, that was too much for him.” The sentry gazed at Sano with sorrowful resentment. “He could have beaten you or Yanagisawa separately, but not both of you at once. He decided to end his life rather than face defeat and disgrace.”
Sano believed the sentry was telling the truth. The story must have already circulated through the castle, and the Matsudaira troops were rushing home to pay their last respects to their dead master. But Sano couldn’t quite believe that after all these years of escalating strife, his enemy was suddenly gone.
“Come on,” he told his men. “This I have to see for myself.”
They joined the rush into the estate, to Lord Matsudaira’s quarters. Sano and Detectives Marume and Fukida shoved their way past the horde of soldiers blocking the door. Outside the building, and in the hall, the soldiers talked among themselves, exclaiming in shock and grief. Inside Lord Matsudaira’s private chamber, all was eerily quiet. Sano and the detectives squeezed through the crowd of top Matsudaira retainers who stood in a circle around the death scene.
Lord Matsudaira lay fallen on his side, legs curled. His white silk robe was open, showing the zigzag slash he’d cut into his belly. The short sword still protruded from the cut, which had leaked crimson blood onto his skin, his robe, and the tatami floor. His hands still gripped the weapon. His eyes were open, but no spirit animated them. Sano saw on Lord Matsudaira’s face an expression of resignation, of peace at last.
“Wouldn’t you know,” Marume said with disgusted rancor, “he did himself in before we could.”
“Chamberlain Sano dealt him the final blow,” Fukida said, “by flushing Yanagisawa into the open.”
That Yanagisawa had turned out to be the secret weapon Sano had used to defeat Lord Matsudaira!
No one else spoke. Lord Matsudaira’s men were apparently too numb with shock to take issue with the detectives’ words about their master. Sano, gazing down at his fallen enemy, felt his anger and hatred wane. Even after all the evils Lord Matsudaira had perpetrated against him, he could sympathize with and even admire the man. Lord Matsudaira had taken the hardest rather than the easy way out. He’d reclaimed his honor. Sano only hoped that were he ever in a similar predicament, he would have as much courage.