"I've got it." Babcott opened the wine that waited in the Georgian silver ice bucket.

"Health! LUN!"

"And happiness!" They clinked glasses.

"Perfect! How's your chef?"

"Fair to awful but the quality of our seafood is good, shrimps, prawns, oysters and dozens of different kinds of fish. Where the devil's Lun?" Babcott sighed. "That bugger needs stick. Swear at him, will you?"

But the butler's pantry was empty. Lun was not in the kitchen. Eventually they found him in the garden beside a pathway. He had been decapitated, his head tossed aside. In its place was the head of a monkey.

"No, Lady," the mama-san said, very afraid. "You cannot leave Ori-san here tomorrow, you must leave at dawn."

Sumomo said, "So sorry, Ori-san will stay unt--"

"So sorry, since the attack on Chief Minister Anjo, the hunt for shishi is intense, rewards for information are to the sky, with death for anyone, anyone in a house harboring them."

"That order's for Yedo, not here in Kanagawa," Sumomo said.

"So sorry, someone has talked," the mama-san said, lips tight. Her name was Noriko and they were alone in her private quarters in her Inn of the Midnight Blossoms, both kneeling on purple cushions, the room candle-lit, a low table with tea on it between them and she had just returned from an angry meeting with the rice merchant moneylender who had raised the interest rate on her mortgage from thirty to thirty-five percent pleading the dangerous state of the realm. Motherless dog, she thought, seething, then compartmentalized that problem to deal with the more dangerous one before her. "This morning we heard that Enforcers are--"

"Who?"

"Enforcers? They're special, interrogating Bakufu patrols, men without mercy. They arrived in the night. I expect to be visited.

So sorry, at dawn he must go."

"So sorry, you will keep him until he is well."

"I-dare-not! Not after the Inn of the Forty-seven Ronin. Enforcers know no mercy. I don't want this head spiked."

"That was in Yedo, this is Kanagawa. This is the Inn of the Midnight Blossoms. So sorry, Hiraga-san would insist."

"No one insists here, Lady," Noriko said sharply. "Even Hiraga-san. I have my own son to think of, and my House."

"Correctly. And I have my brother's friend and Hiraga's ally to think of. Also the face of my brother to remember. I am empowered to settle his debts."

Noriko gaped at her. "All Shorin's debts?"

"Half now, half when sonno-joi rules."

"Done," Noriko said, so unbalanced with the windfall she never expected to collect that she failed to bargain. "But no gai-jin doctors, and only a week."

"Agreed." At once the girl reached into her sleeve for the purse in a secret pocket.

Noriko sucked in her breath seeing the gold coins. "Here are ten oban. You will give me a receipt and his detailed account, the balance of the half we have agreed, when we leave. Where can Ori-san be safe?"

Noriko cursed herself for being so hasty, but having agreed, now it was a matter of face. As she considered what to do she studied the girl in front of her, Sumomo Anato, younger sister of Shorin Anato, the shishi, the Wild One--the boy she had initiated into the world of men so many years ago. Eeee, what lust, what vigor for one so young, she thought with a pleasant though untoward ache. And what a memorable courtesan this girl would make. Together we could earn a fortune, in a year or two she would marry a daimyo, and if she's still virgin what a pillow price I could get! She's every bit as beautiful as Shorin had said, classical Satsuma--according to him samurai in every way. Every bit as beautiful.

"How old are you, Lady?"

Sumomo was startled. "Sixteen."

"Do you know how Shorin died?"

"Yes. I will be revenged."

"Hiraga told you?"

"You ask too many questions," Sumomo said sharply.

Noriko was amused. "In the game we play, you and I, though you are samurai and me mama-san, we're sisters."

"Oh?"

"Oh yes, so sorry, the very serious game of trying to cover for our men, to shield them from their bravery, or stupidity, depending on which side you are, risking our lives to protect them from themselves merits trust on both sides. Trust of blood sisters. So, Hiraga told you about Shorin?"

Sumomo knew that her position was tenuous.

"Yes."

"Hiraga is your lover?"

Sumomo's eyes slitted. "Hiraga is, was affianced to me before he... before he left to serve sonno-joi."

The mama-san blinked. "A Satsuma samurai allows his daughter to be betrothed to a Choshu samurai--whether shishi or not, ronin or not?"

"My father, my father did not approve. Nor my mother though Shorin did. I did not approve their choice for me."

"Ah, so sorry." Noriko was saddened, knowing too well that that meant continual pressure, confinement in their house, or even worse: "Are you outcast from your family?"

Sumomo stayed motionless, her voice remained calm. "A few months ago I decided to follow my brother, and Hiraga-san, to spare my father that shame. Now I am ronin."

"Are you mad? Women cannot become ronin."

"Noriko," Sumomo said, gambling. "I agree we should be blood sisters." A stiletto appeared in her hand.

Noriko blinked, not having seen where it had appeared from. She watched as Sumomo pricked her finger and offered her the knife. Without hesitation she did the same and they touched fingers, mixing their blood, then bowed gravely. "I am honored. Thank you, Sumomo-san." Smiling the mama-san returned the knife. "Now I am a tiny tiny bit samurai, yes?"

The knife slid back into the sleeve sheath.

"When the Emperor regains all his power, HE will make those deserving it, samurai. We will petition for you, Hiraga-san, Ori and I."

Again Noriko bowed her thanks, loving that idea but sure it was beyond possibility and that she would never live to see the unthinkable happen: the day the Toranaga Shogunate ceased to be. "On behalf of all my line, thank you. Now sak`e!"

"No thank you, so sorry, but Sensei Katsumata made women in his class forswear sak`e, telling us it would forever blunt our skills and spoil our aim. Please, where is Hiraga-san?"

Noriko watched her, hiding her smile.

"Katsumata, the great Sensei? You studied under him? Shorin told us you could use sword, knife and shuriken. Is that true?"

With dazzling speed Sumomo's hand went into her obi, came out with a shuriken and hurtled the small, razor-sharp, five-bladed circle of steel across the room to thwakkk viciously into the exact center of a post. She had hardly moved.

"Please, where is Hiraga-san?" she asked gently.

YEDO That night Hiraga led the silent charge up and over the stockade of a daimyo's palace in the second ring outside the castle walls and rushed through the gardens for the back entrance of the mansion, the night lit by a halfhearted moon. All six men wore the same short, black, night-fighting kimonos without armor for speed and quiet. All had swords, knives and garrotes. All were Choshu ronin Hiraga had summoned urgently from Kanagawa for tonight's raid.

Around the mansion the sprawling compound of barracks, stables and servants' quarters that would normally house five hundred warriors and the daimyo's family and servants was eerily empty. Only two sleepy sentries were at the back door. These men saw the raiders too late to sound an alarm and died. Akimoto stripped one of his uniform and put it on, then dragged the bodies into the undergrowth and rejoined the others on the veranda. They waited, motionless, listening intently. No warning shouts or they would have abandoned the attack at once.

"If we have to retreat, never mind,"

Hiraga had said at dusk when the others had arrived in Yedo. "It's enough that we can penetrate so close to the castle. Tonight's purpose is terror, to kill and spread terror, to make them believe no one and no place is beyond reach of us or our spies. Terror, in and out quickly, maximum surprise and no casualties.