The Way of the Traitor: A Samurai Mystery Read Free Page A

recovery. He lowered his sword, apparently intending a cut across Sano's stomach. Then his blade suddenly changed direction. Sano parried the sword testers diagonal chest slice almost too late. His counterstrike slashed Miochin's thigh. Miochin gasped in pain, but didn't falter. Then Sano took a risk he would have once instructed his students to avoid.

When Miochin hoisted his sword in both hands for a deadly vertical slash, Sano gambled that this was another feint. Resisting the instinctive urge to raise his weapon and shield his torso, he lowered and swung his blade.

It gashed Miochin's belly from side to side. The sword tester howled in horrified surprise. Reflex carried his arms out of the feinted downslash and sideways for the crosscut he'd really intended. The light went out of his eyes before he hit the ground.

Sano stepped back. He saw his men, all alive and well, hurrying to his rescue. The other criminals lay dead in the shop. Releasing the tension from his body in a series of deep gasps, Sano let the rain wash Miochin's blood off his sword, then sheathed it. Although killing and death were a samurai's natural domain, he hated taking lives. The act placed him uncomfortably close to the murderers he hunted. But this instance he could justify as necessary.

oSsakan-sama. Hirata's voice cracked as he addressed Sano, his face stricken. oSumimasen "excuse me, but that was a dangerous thing to do. You could have been killed. It's my duty to serve and protect you. You should have let me take Miochin.

oNever mind, Hirata. It's over now. And, merciful gods, with no casualties on his side! Still gasping for breath, Sano said, oWe'll report the raid to the local police. They can close down the shop, clear away the dead, and return the stolen corpse. His heart still pumped the exhilarating tonic of victory through his veins. Miochin's thieves would no longer prey on travelers or grieving families.

Hirata tore the hem from his cloak and bound Sano's left forearm, which bled from a cut he hadn't noticed. oYou'll need a doctor when we get back to Edo Castle.

Back to Edo Castle. The four words deflated Sano's spirits. At the castle, he must report to the shogun and face again the fact that a weak, foolish despot owned his soul. Glumly Sano looked forward to resuming his place in the corrupt Tokugawa political machine, and his bleak existence in an empty house haunted with memories of Aoi.

Until another search for truth and justice again gave his life honor and meaning.

IN THE MORNING, after a long night of giving orders and filing reports at police headquarters, Sano, Hirata, and the other detectives arrived at Edo Castle, which perched on its hilltop above the city, beneath low, ominous storm clouds. At the castle gate, a massive, ironclad door set in a high stone wall, guards admitted Sano and his men into the maze of passages and security checkpoints.

oI'll meet you at home, Sano told Hirata, referring to the mansion in the castle's Official Quarter where he and his retainers lived.

He followed a passage that wound up the hill between enclosed corridors and watchtowers manned by armed guards. He entered the inner precinct, crossed the garden, and stopped before the shogun's palace, a vast building with whitewashed plaster walls, carved wooden doors, beams, and window lattices, and a many-gabled gray tile roof.

oSsakan Sano Ichir, reporting to His Excellency, he told the guards stationed outside.

They bowed and opened the door without asking him to leave his swords or searching him for hidden weapons: He'd earned the shogun's trust. oYou may proceed to the inner garden, the chief guard said.

Sano walked down cypress-floored corridors past the government offices that occupied the building's outer rooms. A sliding door, manned by more guards, led him outside again, where he followed a flagstone path through Tokugawa Tsunayoshi's private garden. The pine trees' densely fringed boughs hung still and heavy in