The sound of footsteps jarred Sano out of his gloomy contemplation. He laid a steadying hand on the horse’s neck and peered around the lattice screen. To his relief, he saw coming toward him not a doshin, but a man dressed in a gaudy purple-and-gold cloak and a strange flat cap. Obviously drunk, he zigzagged down the alley to the privies. Sano saw that his cap wasn’t one at all, but a mask, pushed up on his head out of the way. Selecting the middle of the identical wooden sheds, the man stumbled inside.
The sight of the man’s Setsubun costume roused Sano to action. A disguise was absolutely essential to the plan beginning to take shape in his mind. Mounting his horse, he walked it over to the privies and waited.
The drunk staggered out of the privy. With two swipes, Sano plucked the mask off his head and tore the cloak from his shoulders.
“Hey, what-” The man spun around and fell on his buttocks.
Sano kicked the horse’s sides as he stuffed the cloak under his arm and fastened the mask over his own face. It was, he saw, an armored face shield that must have once belonged to a general or other high-ranking officer. Made of black metal, it had slits cut out for the eyes and mouth, and a bristly black horsehair mustache.
“Filthy samurai!” the drunk bawled at him, shaking a fist. “Think you can just take whatever you want!”
Now doubly a thief, Sano started to gallop away with his stolen goods. How ironic that in his crusade to catch a criminal, he’d become one himself! Then he turned back. Taking some coins from his pouch, he threw them at the drunk. They clinked and scattered across the ground.
“Have these as payment,” he called. He might die at any moment, and he didn’t want his last act to be one of thievery, no matter how necessary. Besides, there was no use hoarding money now. If he survived this night-if his plan succeeded-he could earn more somehow. If not, then what little cash he carried wouldn’t even pay for his funeral. Now he wished he’d thought to pay Wada-san for the horse that he might never return.
He swung the horse about and headed for the street. At the end of the alley he slowed to don the purple cloak printed with gold peonies. His long sword made an awkward bulge in it, and he hoped no one would notice and wonder why a samurai hid his weapons.
Out in the streets, the crowd swirled around him. Masked faces leered: dragons, monkeys, demons, tigers. Troupes of wandering musicians played drums, flutes, and clappers. A shower of pellets rained down on Sano as he passed a house where a group of women stood on the roof.
“Devils out! Fortune in!” they chanted, throwing roasted soybeans into the street for good luck.
Sano headed southwest out of Nihonbashi toward the daimyo district. With part of his attention, he watched for the doshin; with the rest, he concentrated on making his way without trampling anyone, and on searching the blocks of buildings for the one he wanted.
At the torū gate of a Shinto shrine located between two shops, he dismounted and secured his horse. He walked through the shrine’s precinct, where the neighborhood’s residents flocked around stalls that sold snacks and amazake, the sweet, gingery fermented New Year’s rice brew. The inner gates bore a long, looping rope of twisted rice straw, denoting the sacred space, strands of plaited white paper, and ferns. Outside the small, thatch-roofed shrine festooned with pine and bamboo and draped with white banners printed with the Tokugawa crest, he paused at the stone water basin to rinse his lips. He dropped a coin into the offering box, pulled the rope to sound the gong, and clapped his hands twice in prayer. Then, after leaving his shoes beside others that stood outside the door, he went into the shrine.
As he looked for the priest, he saw a family-father, mother, and two children-standing before the altar. The mother was unwrapping a package of cakes to leave as an offering to the stone image of the harvest goddess Inari.
“We do this so that she will bless us with good luck in the New Year,” the father explained to the children.
With his own chances for good fortune almost nonexistent, Sano felt very remote from them, as if an invisible screen separated him from the everyday world.
“Come, why so sad? Holidays are for celebrating.”
Sano turned to see the priest standing beside him, an old man with a face like a dried apple. He wore a cylindrical black hat on his bald head, and a deep purple robe over his white kimono. Wrinkles creased the skin around his eyes and mouth when he smiled.
“Are you troubled?” he asked. His expression turned serious with compassion. “Is there some way in which I can help you?”
No one could help him. He was alone in his trouble. But he’d come to ask the priest for a small service that might help those who cared about him.
“Yes,” he said. “Might I have a brush, some ink, and a piece of paper? And a place where I can sit and write?”
If the priest thought this request odd, or thought it strange that Sano didn’t remove his mask, he gave no sign. He merely motioned for Sano to follow him outside, to a shed at the rear of the shrine precinct. There, in a small room that served as storeroom, kitchen, and office, he arranged writing materials on a desk. He nodded to Sano and withdrew.
Sano took off his mask so that he could see in the dim shed. He ground the ink, mixed it with water, and dipped his brush.
Setsubun, Genroku 1. Otōsan and Okōsan,
he wrote, regretting that his need for haste allowed him no time for the formal expressions of respect with which he would normally begin a letter to his parents.
By the time you get this letter, I will probably be dead. That being the case, I wish now to give you my most solemn oath that I did not kill the woman who was found by the canal today, no matter what anyone would have you believe.
Rather than passively accept my fate and the disgrace that my conviction and execution would bring upon our family, I must prove my innocence and bring the real killer to justice. I intend to do so by first stealing, then delivering into the hands of the authorities a certain scroll now in the possession of Lord Niu Masahito. It proves that he is guilty of treason and supports my contention that he killed four people and made me a fugitive from the law in order to conceal his plot to assassinate the shogun.
By this action may I also fulfill my duty to our highest lord by saving him from death at the hands of Lord Niu and his fellow conspirators.
I must leave you now, knowing that I might never return.
Please forgive me for all the suffering I have brought upon you. With eternal gratitude, devotion, and respect,
Ichirō
Sano read over his ill-composed message, hoping that it would give his parents some measure of comfort, or at least explain his actions to them. He blotted the ink dry, folded and sealed the letter. He wrote his parents’ full names and the directions to their house on it. Then he donned his mask and went outside, where he found the priest waiting.
“Will you please see that this message is delivered today?” he asked. He handed it to the priest, along with the rest of his money. “It’s very important.”
The priest frowned as he nodded and took the letter, though not out of offense at a stranger’s imposition. He seemed to have accepted the gravity of Sano’s predicament without question, as his next words proved:
“Is there no turning back from this dangerous course of action upon which you have decided?”
Sano looked away from the priest, toward the shrine’s outer precinct, where a troupe of amateur actors had set up a makeshift stage. The hero, dressed as a samurai, was singing a lament about a son killed in battle. An appreciative audience cheered his anguished cries and posturings.