Shinju.

by Laura Joh Rowland.

Prologue.

The horseman halted his mount on a narrow path that led to the Sumida River, listening to the night. Had he heard a footstep somewhere in the dark forest that surrounded him? Was someone watching him? Fear set his heart racing.

But he heard only the icy wind rattling the bare winter branches and the faint chuffing of his mare as she stirred restlessly beneath him. High above the horizon, the last full moon of the Old Year shone brightly, silvering the path and the forest with a chill radiance. He peered into the shadows, but saw no one.

Then he smiled grimly: guilt and imagination had deceived him. This path in the remote northern outskirts of Edo saw little enough traffic by day. Now, at just past midnight, it was deserted.

As he'd foreseen.

He urged the mare forward through a thicket of branches that caught on his hooded cloak and on the long, bulky bundle slung over the horse's back behind him. The mare faltered, whinnying softly, unaccustomed to the extra weight. He tried to calm her, but she refused to go on. As she stamped her hooves, the bundle wobbled dangerously. He flung a hand back to steady it. Cold fear licked at him. What if it fell? Strong as he was, he would never be able to lift it back on-not here. And he couldn't carry it the rest of the way to the river. It would take an hour by foot; impossible with a burden nearly as long as and even heavier than he. Besides, dragging it would tear the fine rice straw of the tatami mats with which he'd wrapped it, damaging the contents.

The horse, after one more stamp, suddenly continued down the path. The bundle held firm. Fear receded. His eyes watered and his face grew numb from the cold; his gloved hands seemed frozen to the reins. What sustained him was the knowledge that each misery-laden step brought him closer to the completion of his mission.

Finally, the woods thinned and the path sloped steeply toward the river. He could smell the water and hear it lapping at the sh.o.r.e. Dismounting, he tied the horse to a tree and stepped off the path.

The boat was right where he'd left it yesterday, hidden among the lower branches of a huge pine. With his cold-stiffened hands, he grasped its prow. Carefully, so that the rocky ground wouldn't damage its flat wooden bottom, he dragged it onto the path beside the horse. Then he untied the ropes that bound the bundle to the horse's back. When the last knot opened, the bundle dropped into the boat with a loud thud.

He began to push the boat down the slope to the water. The slope, though not more than forty paces long, did not provide an easy launch. Soon he was panting with the effort of alternately pushing, lifting, and dragging the boat toward the river. At last he reached the sh.o.r.eline, and the boat slid in with a whoosh. He waded into the freezing water, pulling the boat with him until it cleared bottom and floated free of the rushes. Then he climbed inside.

The boat rocked precariously under the combined weight of him and the bundle. Water sloshed over the sides. For one dreadful moment he feared the boat would sink, but it abruptly stabilized with its gunwales just above the water. Sighing his relief, he lifted the oar, stood in the stern, and began to row south toward the city.

The river spread before him like an immense length of oiled black silk stippled with moonlight. The splash of his oar made a rhythmic counterpoint to the keening wind. On the near sh.o.r.e to his right, pinpoints of flame winked on dark land that rose gradually toward the hills: lanterns lighting the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter; torches flaring in Asakusa's temple gardens. On the distant eastern sh.o.r.e he could discern nothing of marshy Honjo. No pleasure craft decorated the scene, as in summer. Tonight he had the river to himself. He could almost enjoy the solitude and the eerie beauty of the night.

But soon his arms grew tired. His breath came in painful gasps. Sweat drenched his garments, letting the frigid wind penetrate them. He longed to simply drift with the river's current as it flowed toward Edo Bay and the sea. Only his desperate need for haste enabled him to push on. Just a few short hours now remained until dawn, and he needed the cover of darkness. If only he could have made the journey by land, on horseback! But Edo 's many guarded gates closed before midnight, sealing off each sector to prohibit exit or entry. The river was the only way.

So he felt immense relief when the city's familiar sights began to appear. First the pavilions of the daimyo, powerful provincial lords who owned much of the land along the upper stretches of the river, as well as most of j.a.pan. Then the whitewashed walls of the city's rice warehouses. Piers and wharves crowded with boats jutted out into the river, now turned foul and fishy, stinking from the waste dumped into it every day. At last the Ryogoku Bridge arched above him, the interlocked pillars and struts of its wooden structure an intricate pattern cut out of the sky.

Exhausted, he stopped at the end of a pier downstream from the bridge, but still within sight of it. He set aside his oar and tied the boat to a piling. Once again, fear gripped him, stronger this time. The whole great city of Edo lay beyond the blank facades of the warehouses. He could sense the million souls that lived there-not asleep, but watching him. Choking back his panic, he knelt before the bundle. Gently, so as not to unbalance the boat, he unwound the stiff straw wrappings. A glance at the sky told him that the moon had long set; dawn's first rosy light tinted the eastern horizon. He could make out the docks of the lumberyards in f.u.kagawa on the opposite bank.

He fought the impulse to jerk at the last mat, instead folding it carefully away.

The two bodies, joined in death and by ropes that bound them at wrists and ankles, lay facing each other, heads positioned cheek to cheek. The man wore the short kimono and cotton trousers of a commoner. His cropped hair framed a blunt, coa.r.s.e face. Puffy eyes and a sensual mouth bespoke a life of dissipation, carnality, and avarice. He'd deserved killing. How easy it had been to lure him to his death with a promise of riches! But the woman...

Her innocent young face, covered with rice-flour makeup, glowed a translucent white. High on her forehead, the fine dark lines drawn above her shaved brows took wing over the long-lashed crescents of her closed eyes. Her lips had parted slightly to reveal two perfect teeth: Darkened with ink according to the fashion for ladies of high birth, they gleamed like black pearls. Long black hair spilled nearly to her feet over a silk kimono that twisted around her slender body.

Sighing, he reminded himself that her death was as necessary as the man's. But he could not look at her beauty without a spasm of grief- A sharp clacking noise made him start. Was someone walking toward him along the pier? Then the clacking repeated: two long beats followed by three short. He relaxed. It was only a night-watchman, somewhere inland, striking his wooden clappers to signal the time. The water had carried the sound.

From his cloak he took a small, flat lacquer case, which he tucked into the woman's sash. Then he put his arms under both bodies and heaved. They tumbled over the side of the boat. There was a m.u.f.fled splash as they hit the dark water. Before they could sink, he caught the end of the rope that bound their wrists and wrapped it around the piling, wedging it firmly into a crack in the slimy wood. He took one last look at the corpses that now floated just beneath the water's surface in an undulating tangle of the woman's hair. Then he looked back toward the bridge.

And nodded in satisfaction. When they were found-as they soon would be-everyone would surmise that they'd jumped from the bridge together and drifted downstream until the piling caught them. The letter sealed in the watertight case would con-firm that impression. He watched to make sure the rope was secure. Then he untied his boat and began the long, cold journey back upstream.

Chapter 1.

Yoriki Sano Ichiro, Edo's newest senior police commander, made his way slowly on horseback across Nihonbashi Bridge. Early on this sunny, clear winter morning, throngs of people streamed around him: porters carrying baskets of vegetables to and from market; water vendors with buckets suspended from poles on their shoulders; shoppers and tradesmen bent low under the packages on their backs. The planks thundered with the steps of wood-soled feet; the air was bright with shouts, laughter, and chatter. Even the hallmarks of Sano's samurai status couldn't speed his pa.s.sage. His mount, a bay mare, merely raised him above the bobbing heads. The two swords he wore-one a long, curved saber, the other a shorter dirk elicited no more than an occasional mumbled "A thousand pardons, honorable master."

But Sano enjoyed his leisurely progress, and his freedom. He'd escaped from the tedium that had marked his first month as a yoriki. A former tutor and history scholar, he'd quickly found the administration of his small section of the police department far less satisfying than teaching young boys and studying ancient texts. He missed his old profession; the thought of never again chasing down a lost or obscure fact left a sad, empty ache at the center of his spirit. Still, although family circ.u.mstances and connections, rather than choice or talent, had thrown him into the unfamiliar world of law enforcement, he'd sworn to make the best of the situation.

Today he had decided to explore his new domain more fully than he could by sitting in his office and affixing his seal to his staff's reports. Exhilarated, he peered over the bridge's railings at the panorama of Edo.

The wide ca.n.a.l, lined with whitewashed warehouses, was jammed with barges and fishing boats. Smoke from countless charcoal braziers and stoves formed a haze over the low tiled and thatched rooftops that extended over the plain in all directions. Through it he could see Edo Castle perched on its hill at the end of the ca.n.a.l. There Ieyasu, first of the Tokugawa shoguns, had established the seat of his military dictatorship seventy-four years ago, fifteen years after defeating his rival warlords in the Battle of Sekigahara. The upturned eaves of the keep's many roofs made it look like a pyramid of white birds ready to take flight: a fitting symbol of the peace that had followed that battle, the longest peace j.a.pan had known in five centuries. Beyond the castle, the western hills were a soft shadow, only slightly less blue than the sky. Mount Fuji 's distant snow-capped cone rose above them. Temple bells tolled faintly, adding to the panoply of sounds.

At the foot of the bridge, Sano pa.s.sed the noisy, malodorous fish market. He edged his horse through the narrow winding streets of Nihonbashi, the peasants' and merchants' quarter named after the bridge. In the open wooden storefronts of one street, sake sellers bartered with their customers. Around the next corner, men labored over steaming vats in a row of dyers' shops. Mud and refuse squished under the horses' hooves and pedestrians' shoes. Sano turned another corner.

And emerged into a vast open s.p.a.ce where last night's fire had leveled three entire blocks. The charred remains of perhaps fifty houses-ash, blackened rafters and beams, soaked debris, fallen roof tiles-littered the ground. The bitter smell of burnt cypress wood hung in the air. Forlorn residents picked their way through the mess, hunting for salvageable items.

"Aiiya," an old woman keened. "My home, all my things, gone! Oh, what will I do?" Others took up her cry.

Sano sighed and shook his head. Thirty-two years ago-two years before his birth-the Great Fire had destroyed most of the city and taken a hundred thousand lives. And still the "blossoms of Edo," as the fires were known, bloomed almost every week among the wooden buildings where a strong wind could quickly fan a single spark into a ferocious blaze. From their rickety wooden towers high above the rooftops, the firewatchers rang bells at the first sight of a flame. Edo 's citizens slept uneasily, listening for the alarm. Most fires were accidents, caused by innocent mistakes such as a lamp placed too near a paper screen, but arson wasn't uncommon.

He'd come to learn whether this fire had resulted from arson. But one look at the ruins told him he could not expect to find evidence. He would have to rely on witnesses' stories. Dismounting, he approached a man who was dragging an iron chest from the rubble.

"Did you see the fire start?" he called.

He never heard the answer. Just then, running footsteps and cries of "Stop, stop!" sounded behind him. Sano turned. A thin man dressed in rags streaked past, panting and sobbing. A pack of ruffians brandishing clubs stampeded after him. The man's bare feet slipped in the mud, and he went sprawling about ten paces from Sano. Immediately the pursuers set upon their quarry, clubs flailing.

"You'll die for this, you miserable animal!" one of them shouted.

The ragged man's sobs turned to screams of pain and terror as he threw up his arms to shield his head from the blows.

Sano hurried over and grabbed the arm of one of the attackers.

"Stop, you'll kill him! What do you think you're doing?"

"Who's asking?"

At the sound of the gruff voice beside him, Sano turned. A burly man with small, mean eyes stood at his elbow. He wore a short kimono over cotton leggings; his cropped hair and the single short sword fastened at the waist of his gray cloak marked him as a samurai of low rank. Then Sano caught sight of the object in the man's right hand, a strong steel wand with two curved p.r.o.ngs above the hilt for catching the blade of an attacker's sword. It was a jitte, a parrying weapon, standard equipment of the doshin, the law enforcement officers who patrolled the city and maintained order.

Comprehension flashed through Sano. This man was one of his hundred-odd subordinates, one of the long line of bowed heads he'd pa.s.sed during the formal ceremony at which his staff was presented to him. The armed ruffians, who had ceased torturing their victim to look at him, were the doshin's civilian a.s.sistants. Privately employed by their superior-and responsible only to him-they performed the dirty work of policing, such as capturing criminals, under his direction. Now three of them moved menacingly in on Sano.

"Who are you?" the doshin demanded again.

Sano said, "I am Yoriki Sano Ichiro. Now explain to me why your men are beating this citizen."

Although he kept his voice calm and stern, his heartbeat quickened. He'd had little chance to exercise his new authority.

The doshin's mouth gaped. He pa.s.sed a hand over his jutting jaw in obvious confusion. Then he bowed obsequiously.

"Yoriki Sano-san," he muttered. "Didn't recognize you."

He jerked his head at his a.s.sistants, who formed a hasty line and bowed, hands on their knees. "My sincerest apologies."

His sullen tone belied the respectful words. Sano could sense the doshin's veiled contempt. The mean little eyes narrowed still more as they traveled over his freshly shaved crown and his oiled hair drawn into a neat looped knot at the back. They registered disgust at the sight of Sano's best outer garment, the black-and-brown-striped haori, and his new black hakama, the wide trousers he wore beneath it. Sano bristled at such open rudeness, but he could understand the man's contempt. The reputation of yoriki for vanity was well known. He himself cared little for fashion, but his superior, Magistrate Ogyu, had stressed the importance of proper dress and appearance.

"Your apologies are accepted," Sano said, deciding to address the matter at hand instead of making an issue over his subordinate's manners. "Now answer my question: what has this man done for which you must punish him?"

Now Sano could see bewilderment on the doshin's face. Yoriki seldom ventured into the streets, preferring to keep their distance from the rough-and-tumble of everyday police work. They appeared only for very serious incidents, and then as field commanders dressed in full armor with helmet and lance. Sano supposed he was the first to ever investigate a common fire.

"He did this," the doshin answered, gesturing at the ruins. "Set the fire. Killed fifteen people." He spat at the man, who still lay facedown in the mud, shoulders trembling with m.u.f.fled sobs.

"How do you know?"

The doshin's prominent jaw thrust out even further, in anger and resentment. "The townspeople saw a man fleeing the street just after the fire started, Yoriki Sano-san. And he confessed."

Sano walked past the a.s.sistants and over to the fallen man. "It's all right," he said gently. "Get up now."

Clumsily the man hunched at the waist, then rose to his knees. Sitting back on his heels, he wiped the mud from his face. Then, to Sano's surprise, his mouth opened in a wide, toothless smile.

"Yes, master." His head bobbed, and his eyes twinkled. Despite the wrinkles that creased his cheeks and forehead, he looked as innocent as a child.

"What's your name?" Sano asked.

"Yes, master."

Sano repeated the question. Getting the same response, he tried another. "Where do you live?"

"Yes, master."

"Did you start the fire?" Sano asked, beginning to understand.

"Yes, master, yes master!" Then, seeing Sano's frown, the man lost his smile. He got to his feet, but fell back as the doshin's a.s.sistants surrounded him again. "No hurt, master!" he pleaded.

"No one will harm you." Furious, Sano turned to the doshin. "This man is a simpleton. He doesn't understand you, or what he's saying. You cannot accept his confession."

The doshin's face flushed, and he squared his shoulders. The jitte shook in his clenched fist. "I asked him if he started the fire. He said yes. How was I to know he was an idiot?"

A voice from the swelling crowd of spectators cried, "If you'd taken the time to talk to him, you would have found out!" Someone else shouted, "He's just a harmless old beggar!" Mutters of agreement followed.

"Shut up!" The doshin turned on the crowd, and the mutters faded. Then he faced Sano. "Arson is a serious crime," he said with exaggerated patience and not a little self-righteousness. "Someone must pay."

For a moment, Sano was too appalled to speak. This law officer-and many others, if the rumors he'd heard were correct-cared more about finding a scapegoat than about uncovering the truth. He wanted to chastise the man for shirking his duty. Then he saw the doshins free hand stray toward the short sword. He knew that only his rank kept the man from challenging him on the spot. He'd made the doshin lose face before the a.s.sistants and the townspeople. And, on his first day in the field, he had made an enemy.

To make peace, he contented himself with saying, "Then we must find the real arsonist. You and your men and I will question the witnesses."

Sano watched the doshin and his men move off to mingle with the crowd. A curious elation came over him. He'd corrected an injustice and probably saved a man's life. For the first time, he realized that being a yoriki offered many opportunities for seeking the truth, and just as many rewards for finding it. More, perhaps, than his work as a scholar, poring over old doc.u.ments. But he wondered uneasily how many more enemies he would make.

It was early afternoon by the time Sano returned to the administrative district, located in Hibiya, southeast of Edo Castle. There the city's high officials had their office-mansions, where they both lived and worked. Messengers bearing rolled doc.u.ments pa.s.sed Sano as he rode along the narrow lanes between earthen walls that shielded the tile-roofed, half-timbered houses. Dignitaries dressed in bright, flowing silk garments walked in pairs or groups; fragments of conversation dealing with affairs of state and the latest political gossip reached Sano's ears. Servants scurried in and out of the gates, carrying trays stacked high with lacquer lunchboxes. The thought of those delicacies made Sano regret the greasy noodles he'd eaten at a food stall on his way back. But the arson investigation had taken longer than he'd antic.i.p.ated, and the quick though unpleasant meal he'd had would let him return to his other duties without further delay. Turning the corner, he headed toward police headquarters.

"Yoriki Sano-san!" A breathless messenger ran up to him, ducking in a hasty bow. "Please, sir, Magistrate Ogyu would like to see you at once. In the Court of Justice, sir." He raised questioning eyes for Sano's response.

"Very well. You're dismissed."

A summons from the magistrate could not go ignored. Sano changed course.

Magistrate Ogyu's mansion was one of the largest in the district. At the roofed portals of its gate, Sano identified himself to a pair of guards dressed in leather armor and headgear. He left his horse with them, then entered the mansion's grounds and threaded his way through a small crowd of townspeople gathered in the courtyard. Some were waiting to bring their disputes before the magistrate; others, accompanied by doshin and with their hands bound by ropes, were obviously prisoners awaiting trial.

Sano paused at the main entrance of the long, low building. Barred wooden lattices covered the windows. The roof's projecting eaves cast deep shadows over the veranda. Seeing the mansion for the first time, he had imagined its dark, brooding appearance symbolic of the often harsh sentences p.r.o.nounced inside. The surrounding garden, with its unlit stone lanterns and skeletal winter trees, reminded him of a graveyard. Shaking off his fancy, he climbed the wooden steps. At a nod from the two guards stationed there, he opened the ma.s.sive carved door.

"Blacksmith Goro." Magistrate Ogyu's reedy voice echoed across the long hall as Sano paused in the entry way. "I have considered all the evidence brought before me regarding the crime with which you are charged."

Sano went to wait at the back of the hall with the samurai courtroom attendants. At the far end, Magistrate Ogyu knelt upon the dais. A thin, stoop-shouldered old man, he seemed lost in his voluminous red and black silk robes. Lamps on either side of his black lacquer desk lit him like a figure on stage. The rest of the room was dim; sunlight filtering through the latticed rice-paper windows provided the only other illumination. Directly before the dais was the shirasu, an area of floor covered with white sand, symbol of truth. There the accused man, bound at wrists and ankles, knelt on a mat. Two doshin knelt on either side of the shirasu. A small audience-witnesses, the accused's family, and the headman of his neighborhood-formed a row toward the back of the hall.

"That evidence indicates beyond all doubt that you are guilty of the murder of your father-in-law," Ogyu continued.

"No!" The scream burst from the accused man. He writhed on the mat, straining at his bonds.

Several of the spectators cried out. A woman collapsed weeping onto the floor.

Ogyu raised his voice above the din, saying, "I sentence you to death. So that they may share in your disgrace, your family is to be banished from the province." He nodded to the doshin, who leaped up and bore the screaming, struggling prisoner out the back door. The attendants hurried forward and escorted the spectators from the room, one dragging the weeping woman by her armpits. Then Ogyu called, "Sano Ichiro. Come forward."

Sano walked to the front of the room and knelt behind the shirasu, a little shaken. Ogyu had just sentenced a man to death and his family to exile, but he was as calm as could be. Sano reminded himself that Ogyu had served as one of Edo 's two magistrates for thirty years. He'd handled so many trials that he had grown inured to sights that would disturb others. He bowed deeply to Ogyu and said, "How may I serve you, Honorable Magistrate?"

Ogyu's pale, spidery hands toyed with his magisterial seal, an oblong chunk of alabaster that bore the characters of his name and rank. His pinched face with its drooping eyelids gleamed sallow and sickly in the flickering lamplight, and his age-spotted bald pate looked like a diseased melon.

"Arson is a serious crime," Ogyu murmured, studying the seal with elaborate concern. He paused, then added, "Though not an uncommon one."

"Yes, Honorable Magistrate," Sano answered, wondering why Ogyu had summoned him. Surely not to exchange trivialities. But Ogyu, like many other members of the refined upper cla.s.ses, never came directly to the point. Kneeling in the Court of Justice, Sano felt as though he-or rather his powers of comprehension- were on trial.

"Such important but distasteful matters are best left to the devices of the lower cla.s.ses. And one's actions have a most unfortunate way of reflecting unfavorably on others." Ogyu turned his head to gaze toward the north windows, in the direction of the castle.

Then Sano understood. Spies and informers abounded in Edo; they were part of an intelligence network that helped the shogun maintain the Tokugawas' unchallenged control over the nation. Someone had undoubtedly begun reporting to Ogyu on Sano's activities the day he a.s.sumed his position as yoriki. That someone must have been in the crowd at the site of the fire. And Ogyu had just told him that for a man of his rank to do doshin's work shamed the entire government, all the way up to the shogun. Although he didn't want to contradict his superior, Sano felt compelled to defend himself.

"Honorable Magistrate, the doshin and his men would have arrested an innocent man if I hadn't stopped them," he said. "By questioning the witnesses, we got a description of the real arsonist, and-"

Ogyu lifted a finger, silencing Sano. The gesture came as close to an open rebuke as Sano had ever seen him make. But instead of speaking about the investigation, Ogyu changed the subject. "I had the privilege of taking tea with Katsuragawa Shundai yesterday."

The syllables of the name fell over Sano like an iron blanket. All further protests died on his lips. Katsuragawa Shundai was his patron, the man who had gotten him this position.

During the civil wars of the last century, Sano's great-grandfather, a va.s.sal in the service of Lord Ku, had saved the life of a fellow soldier, head of the Katsuragawa family. The Katsuragawa fortunes had risen while the Sanos' declined, but that act had bound the two families inextricably. Sano remembered the day when his father had called in that old debt...

His father had taken him to see Katsuragawa Shundai at the city treasury. Kneeling in Katsuragawa's sumptuous office, they had accepted bowls of tea.

"I do not have much longer to live, Katsuragawa-san," his father said. "That is why I must request your a.s.sistance in the matter of my son. I have no fortune to leave him, and he is a mere tutor with no prospects and no special talents. But surely, with your influence...?"