The Samurai's Wife Read Free Page A

saw Reiko climbing down a wooden pillar from the balcony. More smoke billowed out the window and skylight. Gasping and wheezing, Sano reached up and grabbed Reiko, who fell into his arms. Coughs wracked her body. From a nearby firewatch tower came the clang of a bell. Carrying his wife, Sano staggered down the street, where the air was fresh and a crowd had gathered. The fire brigade, dressed in leather tunics and helmets, arrived with buckets of water.
     
     
"Don't go in there!" Sano shouted. "Poison fumes!"
     
     
The crowd exclaimed. The fire brigade broke down the shop doors and hurled water inside. Sano and Reiko collapsed together on the ground. The detectives joined them, while Hirata stumbled over to the Good Fortune. He went inside, then returned. "There's no one in there. The Lion has escaped."
     
     
Sano cursed under his breath, then turned to Reiko. "Are you all right?"
     
     
Sudden shouts and pounding hoofbeats scattered the crowd.
     
     
"I'm fine." Coughing and retching, Reiko pointed. "Look!"
     
     
Up the street ran the man who'd entered the Good Fortune, no longer stooped and white-haired but upright and bald. The torn kimono flapped open, exposing muscular arms, chest, and legs blue with tattoos-the mark of a gangster. Mounted troops wearing the Tokugawa triple-hollyhock crest galloped after him. His face, with the broad nose and snarling mouth that had earned him his nickname, was wild with terror.
     
     
"It's the Lion!" Hirata exclaimed.
     
     
Sano stared as more soldiers charged from the opposite direction. "Where did they come from?"
     
     
The leader, clad in armor, slashed out with his lance. It knocked the Lion flat, just a short distance from Sano. Instantly soldiers surrounded the Lion. Leaping off their horses, they seized him and tied his wrists.
     
     
"You're under arrest," the leader shouted.
     
     
Sano recognized his voice at once. Shock jolted him. "Chamberlain Yanagisawa!"
     
     
The chamberlain dismounted. Removing his helmet, he triumphantly surveyed the scene. Then his gaze fell upon Sano and Reiko. Dismay erased his smile. He stalked away, calling to his troops: "Take my prisoner to Edo Jail!"
     
     
In Sano's mansion in the Edo Castle Official Quarter, Sano, Reiko, and Hirata sat in the parlor drinking medicinal tea to cleanse the poison from their systems. The sliding doors stood open to admit fresh air from the garden. Sano could still taste the acrid fumes on his breath. His head ached violently, and he knew they were lucky to be alive.
     
     
"This has gone on long enough," he said in a voice taut with fury. "Yanagisawa has been after me ever since I came to the castle." During the Bundori Murders case, Yanagisawa had sent a spy to give Sano false leads, and almost ruined a trap he'd set for the killer. "He's tried again and again to assassinate me." Sano had narrowly escaped death by attacks from Yanagisawa's henchmen. "When we were investigating the murder of Lady Harume last fall, his scheming almost destroyed me, but I'm the one he blames for Shichisaburo's death, which was his own fault. He's tried everything possible to get rid of me, including banishment." In Nagasaki, Sano had become embroiled in a politically sensitive case involving the murder of a Dutch trader and was almost convicted of treason.
     
     
"I've tolerated his evils for two years because I had no choice," Sano continued. According to Bushido-the Way of the Warrior-any criticism of the shogun's second-in-command implied criticism of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi himself. Any attack on Yanagisawa translated into an attack on the lord to whom Sano had sworn allegiance: blasphemy! Therefore, Sano had refrained from speaking out against Yanagisawa. "But he's gone too far by attacking Reiko."
     
     
"So you're sure the chamberlain is responsible for the bombing," Hirata said.
     
     
Sano nodded grimly. "His arrival on the scene was too coincidental, and he wasn't surprised to find us there-he was