The shogun held a cushion in front of his chest like a shield. His cylindrical black cap was askew. He cringed away from Kajikawa, who knelt at the left edge of the platform.
“A thousand apologies, Your Excellency.” Gasping, Kajikawa staggered on his knees toward the shogun. “Please excuse me for intruding on you like this.”
The other two men on the platform were Yanagisawa and Yoritomo. Yoritomo put his arm around the shogun. “Don’t come any closer!” he yelled at Kajikawa.
Standing behind his son and the shogun, Yanagisawa ordered, “Get out this instant!”
His face, and Yoritomo’s, showed shock as well as anger. Sano pictured the scene he’d just missed-the brazier erupting out of the floor, the burning coals flying, and Kajikawa surfacing like a demon from the underworld.
Kajikawa ignored Yanagisawa and Yoritomo. “I can explain everything, Your Excellency. I beg you to listen!”
The shogun whimpered in fright. Yanagisawa called to the men hovering by the walls. “Don’t just stand there. Take him away!”
Three palace guards stumbled forward. The other men were the shogun’s boy concubines and Yanagisawa’s two cronies from the Council of Elders.
“In all my years, I’ve never seen such a thing!” Kato said.
“It’s an outrage!” Ihara said.
Dismayed by the way his search for the fugitive had ended, Sano shouted, “Kajikawa!”
The servants put out the fire. The guards paused. Everyone turned toward Sano.
“Ahh, Sano-san. Good.” The shogun smiled weakly; he’d forgotten he was displeased with Sano. He looked hopeful that Sano could restore order.
Yanagisawa’s and Yoritomo’s expressions hardened into hostility. Surprise marked Kato’s mask-like features and Ihara’s simian face. Kajikawa turned to Sano. The little man’s clothes were streaked with grime, drenched from the rain. His topknot had unraveled; soot smeared his delicate features. His eyes were wild, his mouth a downturned grimace.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your father-in-law.” Kajikawa seemed horrified by his predicament, by the forces he’d unleashed that had spun out of his control. “I didn’t mean for anyone to be hurt except for Kira.”
“I know. You wanted to punish Kira, and you weren’t able to do it yourself.” Although Sano pitied Kajikawa, his tone was hard. “So you set Oishi on Kira. It was revenge by proxy.”
Kajikawa’s grimace gaped with surprise. “How did you know?”
Yanagisawa recovered his voice. “If you want a little chat, have it someplace else.” He obviously realized that revelations about the vendetta were forthcoming.
“Oishi told me,” Sano said to Kajikawa.
“He promised not to tell, but I knew it would come out,” Kajikawa lamented.
The shogun flung aside his cushion. “What is he talking about?”
“Nothing,” Yoritomo said, eager to prevent Sano from getting credit for discovering the truth about the vendetta.
“You should have thought before you told Oishi about his wife and Lord Asano and Kira,” Sano said.
“I couldn’t have known what would happen!” Kajikawa cried. “I made a mistake!”
“You should have thought before you started a manhunt for Kajikawa and chased him into the palace,” Yoritomo shrilled at Sano. “You’re the one who made a mistake.”
Sano belatedly noticed Masahiro among the shogun’s boys. He was astonished because he hadn’t known Masahiro was serving the shogun today. Masahiro looked just as astonished to see his father. Sano decided he’d better break up this scene before something worse happened.
“I apologize for the inconvenience, Your Excellency,” Sano said, then beckoned to Kajikawa. “Come with me. You’re under arrest.”
“No!” Kajikawa raised palms that were burned red from pushing up the hot brazier. He began to weep. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. Forgive me for hurting Magistrate Ueda! That fool I hired went after the wrong man!”
Yanagisawa said to the guards, “Remove him! Now!”
The guards advanced. Sano cut ahead of them. Kajikawa scrambled to the back of the platform and cried, “Don’t-don’t touch me!” He fumbled the sword at his waist out of its scabbard. His shaking hand held the gleaming steel blade aloft.
Everyone was stunned speechless. Sano and the guards stopped. Yanagisawa and Yoritomo froze, mouths dropped, angry words stuck in their throats, while the elders, the servants, and the boys stared. The shogun had never looked stupider.
Drawing a weapon inside Edo Castle was a bad enough crime. Doing it in the shogun’s presence was unthinkable. Sano thought of Lord Asano’s attack on Kira while Kajikawa watched. This time it was Kajikawa, the witness, who’d snapped.
Sano started to climb the three steps to the platform to seize Kajikawa before he could do any harm. Kajikawa shrieked, “Leave me alone, or-or-”
He swung the sword down at the shogun. The room gasped. Sano’s breath caught; his steps faltered. The shogun squealed, dodged sideways, and fell on his back. He lay with his knees bent, his toes in their white socks curled on the floor, his arms outstretched and fingers stiff. Fright wrenched his face into a pop-eyed, slack-jawed expression while Kajikawa stood over him, the blade against his throat.
* * *
“I want to go outside,” Akiko said.
She and Reiko had been playing together in the parlor all morning. Dolls littered the floor around them. Although Reiko was worried about her father, and impatient for news about Kajikawa, she enjoyed spending time with her daughter. But Akiko had grown restless.
“No, it’s too cold and icy.” Reiko heard the wind keening and ice shards shattering on the roof. “We have to stay inside.”
Akiko marched to the exterior door and pushed it open. Reiko sighed. Her daughter was so much like herself-determined to do what she wanted.
The crystalline trees and the jagged icicles that hung from the eaves, the veranda railings, and the pavilion in the center of the frozen pond gave the garden a dreamlike quality. Hirata’s children, dressed in bright, puffy coats, ran across the frozen snow and slid.
“Me, too.” Akiko ran into the garden.
“Wait,” Reiko called, following her daughter. “Not without your coat and shoes!”
She minced over the slippery snow. Akiko joined Taeko and Tatsuo. She ran and slid, laughing gleefully. Reiko chased and caught Akiko and carried her toward the house.
“Naughty girl,” she scolded. “Can’t you ever listen to me?”
Akiko was brave about physical danger and pain, but she couldn’t bear censure from her mother. She began to cry.
Chiyo met them at the door, her face worried. “I’ve just heard that there’s trouble in the palace. Something terrible has happened. No one seems to know what. Your husband is there. So is Masahiro.”
* * *
The atmosphere in the chamber reminded Sano of the moment after an earthquake has toppled buildings across the city. As Kajikawa held the sword to the shogun’s throat, there was a hush except for the shogun’s whimpers and Kajikawa’s panting breaths. Sano halted with one foot on the platform and one on the step below, hands flung up. Everybody else was perfectly still, as if afraid that the slightest movement would trigger an aftershock.
Kajikawa’s face was deathly white beneath the soot. He gazed at the sword in his hand, as though he couldn’t believe that his actions had brought him to this. Neither could anyone else, Sano thought.
“Don’t come any closer, or I’ll-” Kajikawa gagged, his next words stuck in his craw. His mind wasn’t so completely unhinged that he could openly threaten the shogun.
“We won’t,” Sano hastened to say.
He didn’t dare try to wrest the sword from Kajikawa. In a tussle, the blade could go anywhere, including through the shogun. Sano backed down the steps with slow, exaggerated care, his pulse and mind racing.