“We’re looking for work,” one of the boys said.
“Come on in.” The sentry called to someone inside the estate, “Take these kids to the housekeeper.”
As they walked in through the gate, Taeko had a bright idea. If she could find a witness for Masahiro, maybe he wouldn’t be mad at her anymore. She followed the children. The guard paid her no attention; he thought she was with them. Once inside the estate, Taeko felt uncertain and afraid. It had buildings under construction, and tents, and workers, and noise, just like at home, but it was so much bigger. And what was a witness? Taeko hoped that if she saw one she would recognize it.
A manservant herded the children to a woman who wore her gray hair scraped into a tight knot and a white apron over an indigo kimono. The housekeeper lined up the children in a row, Taeko at the end. She walked down the row, studying each one. Her chin jutted up toward her nose, which curved down in a hook.
“This lot is worse than the last,” she grumbled to the manservant. “But with the shortage of help since the earthquake, and so much work to be done, I have to take whatever I can get.” She came to Taeko. Taeko bowed; the other children hadn’t. “Have you ever worked in a rich samurai’s house before, little girl?”
Taeko nodded. She helped take care of her little brother and sister. That should count.
“Well, this one has some manners, and she looks clean,” the housekeeper said. “She’ll do. Get rid of the rest.” The manservant led the other children away. The housekeeper said to Taeko, “Come with me.”
Resisting the urge to run, Taeko meekly obeyed. Despite her fear, she wanted to impress Masahiro. This was her chance.
The housekeeper led her into a big tent. Peasant women and girls were washing clothes and linens in huge tubs of boiling-hot water. Mountains of more dirty laundry waited. Steam filled the air, which smelled of lye soap that made Taeko’s eyes burn.
“Wash those.” The housekeeper pointed to baskets ranged around a tub.
The baskets contained men’s loincloths. The long strips of white cotton fabric were soiled and rank. Taeko’s stomach turned. She gingerly picked up some cloths, dropped them in the steamy water, and didn’t know what to do next. At home the maids did the laundry.
“They’re not going to wash themselves, idiot!” The housekeeper picked up a ceramic jar, poured soap into the tub, and hit Taeko hard on the back of her head. She shoved a washboard into Taeko’s hands. “Start scrubbing!”
Taeko gasped with pain and shock. Nobody had ever hit her before, except her brother when they were playing. The other women laughed. Taeko wanted to tell her father that the housekeeper had hit her. He was the best fighter in Edo; he would teach the mean old woman a lesson. But her father was away. And Taeko must help Masahiro.
Swallowing her pride and distaste, she thrust her hand into the hot, caustic water, picked up a dirty loincloth, and began scrubbing.
* * *
As Hirata rode away from the Ryōgoku Bridge, his cheek and mouth hurt where Sano had hit him. He wished Sano had hit him harder; he was so angry at himself. He’d managed to make things worse! Belatedly he realized he shouldn’t have approached Sano until after he’d dealt with Tahara, Deguchi, and Kitano. He cursed his mistake.
And here they came. Their aura pulsed faintly, like a whispered taunt, in the distance. Hirata wanted to gallop his horse in the opposite direction. But he’d promised Sano, and himself, that he would set things right.
He had five days.
The aura’s rhythmic cadence boomed more distinctly, thrumming along his nerves. Hirata followed the aura through the Nihonbashi merchant quarter. The men were leading him on, to a location they’d chosen for this first encounter in the four months since he’d told them he knew the truth about them and wanted to quit the secret society.
In a poor neighborhood that hadn’t yet been rebuilt, the aura magnified to such an intensity that the landscape of Hirata’s mind shivered with every boom. Colored lightning veined his vision. He could barely see the piled ruins that still lined the streets or hear the construction noises from other parts of the city. At the end of the street, where the neighborhood gate was crushed under two collapsed houses, wind spun up from the ground. A funnel cloud of debris formed. Hirata halted his mount. The aura shut off suddenly. The whirlwind dissipated. The debris settled around three men standing side by side.
Panic constricted Hirata’s lungs; he could hardly breathe. His horse reared and whinnied. As Hirata calmed the horse, Tahara, Deguchi, and Kitano strolled toward him as casually as if they’d just stepped out of a teahouse. Hirata dismounted and walked to meet them. It took every bit of courage he could muster.
“Hello, stranger,” said Tahara, the leader of the society, who walked between his two comrades. His voice was simultaneously smooth and rough, like rapids flowing over jagged boulders. A black surcoat with broad epaulets, a flowing bronze silk kimono, and wide trousers clothed his athletic physique. A twinkle in his deep black eyes, and a left eyebrow that was higher than the right, gave his strong, regular features a rakish charm.
“Look what the wind blew in.” Hirata echoed the words he’d heard Marume say about him earlier.
Deguchi, the priest with the shaved head, dressed in a saffron-dyed robe, smiled. He never spoke; he was mute. When he and Tahara and Kitano had tried to steal the magic spell book from Ozuno the first time, Ozuno had tried to strangle Deguchi and damaged his vocal cords. His ageless oval face had an eerie, radiant beauty despite the fact that it was plain, with a flat nose and pursed mouth. His heavily lidded eyes glowed with sweetness and menace.
“You led us on a merry chase,” Kitano said. In his fifties, gray-haired but robust, he wore the iron helmet and armor tunic of a soldier. A smile crinkled his eyes, but the rest of his face was an immobile mesh of scars. During the battle, Ozuno had cut Kitano’s face, severing the nerves. “A lot of good it did you, though. Here you are, back in the fold with us.”
“No, I’m not,” Hirata said as the three men surrounded him. They were clean, neatly groomed, and fresh. During the chase across Japan they’d probably slept in nice inns and eaten well while they let him tire himself out. Furious at them for playing with him, he said, “I’m only with you for as long as it takes to tell you this: I quit. I’m dissolving the secret society.”
“Oh, please.” Tahara grimaced. “Not this foolishness again.”
“Haven’t you gotten it through your head yet?” Kitano said. “Once you’re in the society, you can’t quit.”
Deguchi drew his index finger across his smooth throat. Hirata felt his own neck muscles contract as he imagined the cold graze of a blade. The second time the men had tried to steal the spell book, they’d succeeded, and they’d killed Ozuno. They could kill Hirata. But he knew of one person who’d quit the society and lived to tell, an itinerant monk he’d met via a tip from a friend. Hirata clung to the hope that he, too, could walk away from them and survive.
“I’m changing the rule,” Hirata said.
“How?” Tahara said, scornful and amused.
“Your lord would be interested to know what you’re up to.” Hirata moved his gaze to Kitano. “So would yours.” He told Deguchi, “And so would the authorities at Zōjō Temple. Unless you all agree to dissolve the society and never summon the ghost again, I’m going to tell your masters. They won’t like you putting them in trouble with the regime.” If Tahara, Deguchi, and Kitano’s conspiracy were exposed, their masters would be reprimanded and heavily fined, if not put to death for harboring traitors. “They’ll kill you to protect themselves.”
“Oh, come now,” Kitano said impatiently. “There’s not an army that can stand up to us. If you report us, it will only force us to kill a lot of innocent people.”
“Sano-san among them,” Tahara said. Deguchi nodded.