Could she inflict such a grief on a woman who’d been kind to her?
Was her scheme a path to joy, or an evil that would condemn her to be reborn into endless cycles of woe?
She glimpsed the infinite divide between what she’d done and what she wanted to happen. There was no logical reason that her actions should effect miracles, she suddenly realized. A battle between belief and indecision churned her blood. The winds inside and outside her gusted harder; swaying off balance, Lady Yanagisawa clutched the railing. Her vision of the future wavered; the sky dimmed as twilight approached. Instead of ethereal song, she heard male voices. She saw, across the garden, a group of men walking along a covered corridor between buildings. Her husband was in the lead, his officials trailing. Lady Yanagisawa’s heart leapt. Perhaps the deed was done. Perhaps now her husband would come to her.
The chamberlain turned his head in her direction. Poised on the brink of glee, Lady Yanagisawa waited. His gaze registered her presence… then flitted away.
Disappointment crushed Lady Yanagisawa. The magnitude of her husband’s indifference toward her shriveled her spirit. The winds suddenly ceased. A vacuum enveloped her, and her perception altered with nightmarish effect.
She saw herself as a tiny, trivial person isolated in a tiny world apart from the big, important one that her husband ruled. As she watched him enter a building and disappear from view, she thought of herself manipulating events like a child playing with toys. Could sanything she did bend her husband, or fate, to her wishes?
Reality encroached upon desire in the terrible stillness of clear thought. What if her wishes had deluded her? What would come of her scheme?
She would have destroyed an innocent child and made her daughter an accomplice in murder.
Even if Reiko believed that Masahiro’s death was an accident, she would never forgive Kikuko, or Lady Yanagisawa.
Lady Yanagisawa’s life would go on much the same as always, but without friendship to comfort her. She would be more alone than ever.
Horror like a flock of black, predatory birds assailed Lady Yanagisawa. A moan of anguish rose from the depths of her spirit. Her doubts about the wisdom of her actions swelled, yet so did the force of her desires. Should she risk the chance that she’d done wrong, for her dream of fulfillment? Or must she stop the events she’d set in motion?
Was it already too late to change her mind?
34
The atmosphere in the warehouse was noxious with foreboding. Sano had heard temple bells toll the passage of two hours since Lightning had taken him hostage. Now he knelt in the loft, near Wisteria, who sat bowed under the weight of fear, eyes downcast. Lightning paced around and around the loft, peering out the windows every few moments, muttering angrily. The eight gangsters crouched apart from each other, their faces stony. Whenever Sano had tried to speak, Lightning had ordered him to be quiet. But Sano believed that the only hope of his survival, and Wisteria’s, lay in developing a rapport with Lightning.
Soon the gangster’s endless prowling brought him toward Sano. Urgency compelled Sano to take a risk. “Where will we go when we leave here?” he said.
Ire flashed in Lightning’s mobile gaze, but he paused near Sano and said, “I don’t know.”
“Do we have supplies for a journey?” Sano said.
“Quit pestering me with chatter.”
“I’m sorry,” Sano said, “but we must talk.” Lightning gripped the hilt of his sword; Wisteria watched them with dread. Sano hurried on: “Holding me hostage won’t guarantee your freedom. The police know you killed Lord Mitsuyoshi. The commissioner is my enemy. He’d gladly attack us and let me die to catch you. That puts us on the same side.”
Lightning snorted in contempt, rejecting Sano’s suggestion that they were comrades. Sano eyed the gangsters, wondering if they were more worried about saving their own skins than loyal to Lightning. “We should work together,” Sano said to Lightning, but he glanced at the other men and pitched his voice so they would hear. “You help me, and I’ll help you.”
The gangsters resisted eye contact, their expressions inscrutable. Sano couldn’t tell whether they’d caught his meaning that if they helped him capture Lightning, he would spare them punishment for their leader’s crimes.
“No place will be safe for us. We’ll be pursued wherever we go,” Sano said, hoping to impress upon the gangsters that if they stayed with Lightning, their futures were bleak. “All of us will die-unless we’re smart enough to take the opportunity to escape when we can.”
“If you think you can scare me into turning myself in, forget it,” Lightning retorted in annoyance. “I’d rather die in battle than surrender.” The gangsters ignored the hint to desert. Sano’s hopes plunged. Lightning said to his men, “I want a drink. Go get me some sake.”
Three men descended the stairs, and Sano heard them rummaging through the warehouse’s goods. Only one man returned, bearing a sake jar. Lightning didn’t seem to notice; he just took the jar and drank. But Sano was jubilant to think that the other two men had fled and his plan was working.
“Surrender is your best bet,” he told Lightning.
“Are you crazy?” The gangster wiped his mouth on his sleeve and stared at Sano. “The shogun will execute me for stabbing his precious heir.”
Out the corner of his eye, Sano saw two more men amble downstairs. Lightning opened a window, looked outside, and said, “I wish your man would hurry up and bring the money!”
“We may be on the run for months,” Sano said. “How will you be able to stand hiding much longer? Captivity can be worse than death.”
“I’m not giving up.” Lightning hurled away the empty jar; it shattered on the warehouse floor below. Wisteria flinched. “I’ll keep my head on my neck as long as possible, and if the army finds me, I’ll kill as many of them as I can before I die.”
He turned to his four remaining comrades. “Go make sure nobody’s trying to sneak in.”
The men went, leaving Sano, Lightning, and Wisteria alone. Sano waited in suspense. The men didn’t return. Lightning began to pace again. While he was at the other end of the loft with his back turned, Sano caught Wisteria’s eye and signaled her to run down the stairs, before Lightning came near them again or guessed what was happening. But Wisteria frowned at him in bafflement: She didn’t realize the gangsters had gone. Suddenly, from the lower story, came the clatter of horses’ hooves. Dismay struck Sano as he comprehended that the gangsters had waited to escape until they were all downstairs, then fled together, noisily, on their mounts.
Lightning froze. “Hey, what’s going on?” He rushed to the edge of the loft and gawked at the empty warehouse. Sano heard the horses galloping away. “Those cowards have deserted me!”
He turned, and Sano watched spasms of panic ripple his features. “My chances of surviving are almost none because I’m all alone!” he shouted, and stalked over to Wisteria. “This is all your fault!”
Like many bullies, he derived his strength from his confederates, and shifted responsibility for his troubles, Sano observed. Wisteria stood and faced Lightning. “It isn’t my fault,” she said, boldly defiant now that he was weakened. “If you hadn’t killed Lord Mitsuyoshi, we would be safe now.”
The gangster jerked backward with surprise that she dared stand up to him. Heaving as though ready to explode from outrage, he said, “Quit blaming everybody else for problems you cause. If you hadn’t cooked up your crazy scheme, none of this would have happened.”