“You will, because it’s all you’re going to get,” the leader said.

Before Reiko could warn her against provoking the man, Keisho-in reared up on her knees. “I demand that you serve us a good hot meal,” she said. “And while you’re at it, take away those slop buckets and bring me some warm water for bathing.”

The leader gave a disdainful laugh. “You don’t give the orders here,” he said.

“Do you know who I am?” Keisho-in’s rheumy old eyes blazed. “I’m the shogun’s mother. I give orders everywhere! And I order you to do as I said, then take us to the nearest post station so we can get a ride home.”

Ignoring her, the leader jerked his chin at the other men. They all backed toward the door.

“Don’t you walk away while I’m talking to you,” Keisho-in shouted, as Reiko silently begged her to be quiet. “Tell me what you’re going to do to us. Tell me your names so I can report you to my son!”

The men didn’t answer; they kept going. With an exclamation of outrage, Keisho-in picked up a rice cake and threw it at the men.

“No!” Reiko and Midori cried in horrified unison.

But Keisho-in hurled more rice cakes. One struck the leader on the chest. Anger blackened his countenance, flared his nostrils wider. He stalked toward Keisho-in and kicked away the food pail, which toppled and spilled. Keisho-in, startled out of her anger, fell on her buttocks. He grabbed her wrist and yanked her upright. With a savage, whipping motion, he flung her into the corner.

She crashed down with a force that jolted a grunt from her, shook the floor, and knocked plaster off the wall. Horror filled Reiko. Midori covered her mouth with her hands.

“That should teach you to behave yourself.” The leader spoke to Keisho-in, but his warning gaze included Reiko and Midori. He and the other men walked out the door.

It slammed shut; the iron bolts dropped. Footsteps descended the stairs. The outer door closed, and leaves rustled as the men retreated. A moment passed while Reiko, Midori, and Keisho-in sat, stunned and wordless amid the scattered food, their ragged breaths the only sound in the room. Lady Yanagisawa lay unconscious. Outside, squirrels chattered, as if mocking their predicament. Reiko stood on legs unsteadied by the crisis and walked to Keisho-in.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“No. He broke my wrist.” Keisho-in spoke in a raspy growl. She proffered the wrist for Reiko to examine.

“It’s swelling,” Reiko said, gently palpating the joint beneath Keisho-in’s age-spotted flesh, “but I think it’s just sprained.” She tore off an end of her sash and bound the wrist.

“Someday that beast will be sorry he dared to hurt me,” Keisho-in fumed.

“Until then, perhaps you’d better not anger him again,” Reiko said with a courteous tact that hid her own anger at Keisho-in. She was obligated to protect the shogun’s mother, but the old woman stupidly defied prudence. “He’s dangerous. He could have killed us all.”

Keisho-in sulked, unrepentant, but pity cooled Reiko’s anger. For the almost fifty years since she’d given birth to the shogun, Keisho-in had been indulged by everyone and never needed to develop self-control. There was no use expecting her to change now. Reiko sighed and gathered up the food.

“We’d better eat,” she said, doling out dirty pickles and mochi. “We need to keep up our strength.”

Keisho-in grudgingly accepted a share, but Midori shook her head. “My stomach feels too sick to eat,” she said.

“Try,” Reiko said. "Maybe you’ll feel better.”

While they sat glumly chewing, Reiko mulled over the incident that had just passed. The five kidnappers seemed the kind of men who had more physical strength than brains. That they’d brought food meant they wanted to keep her and the other women alive. They would come again, and next time, perhaps Reiko could outwit them and escape.

Yet even as she drew hope from these thoughts, others disturbed her. Did the men she’d seen work for someone else who’d ordered the kidnapping, someone who meant to kill her and her friends after they’d served whatever his purpose was? How many more men were stationed around the prison? And her wits alone were no match for steel blades.

Reiko experienced such discouragement and helplessness that she almost wept. But she was determined to escape her captors, and she must make the best of the circumstances they’d dealt her. She finished eating, then searched the room for anything she could use as a weapon. She examined the food and waste buckets. The flimsy wooden containers offered limited possibilities. The kidnappers knew better than to leave anything that would endanger them. Reiko inserted her fingers into cracks in the floor and tried to pry up boards, but dislodged only useless splinters. Desperation cast her eyes up toward the ceiling.

Then, as Reiko contemplated the rafters, a plan formed in her mind. Hope awakened, but she realized that she would need help. She looked over her companions. Her gaze bypassed Midori and Keisho-in, dismissing the latter as too foolish and both as too physically weak, and lit on Lady Yanagisawa. Here was the accomplice she needed-if only she could bring Lady Yanagisawa out of her trance.

Reiko knelt close beside the woman and peered into the glazed, sightless eyes. “Lady Yanagisawa,” she said, “can you hear me?”

8

Concealed in a guard tower that topped the wall of his estate inside Edo Castle, Chamberlain Yanagisawa stood looking out the window across a garden below him. A gap in the sunlit foliage revealed the shogun’s private quarters, some hundred paces distant. Tokugawa Tsunayoshi sat propped on cushions on the shady veranda while physicians dressed in dark blue coats fed him medicine. The anxious tones of their conversation drifted up to Yanagisawa, who knew the shogun was so upset about his mother’s kidnapping that he’d taken ill in the night. Yanagisawa himself had spent sleepless hours thinking over the consequences that the crime posed for him. Now he heard someone walking toward him along the wall, looked out the door, and saw Police Commissioner Hoshina approaching.

Hoshina entered the tower and stood at the window beside Yanagisawa. “I’ve got our troops ready to march as soon as we need them for a rescue mission,” Hoshina said. “And I’ve ordered all my officers to scour Edo for information about the kidnapping.”

His arrival caused a quickening inside Yanagisawa, even after three years as lovers, even at a time when affairs of state preoccupied him. It was as if his heart were a bell, and Hoshina the clapper that awakened song from cold, inanimate metal. The sight of Hoshina aroused an intense desire that Yanagisawa stifled. Need rendered him vulnerable, and vulnerability was fatal for a man in his position. He felt a stab of resentment toward Hoshina, the weak spot in his armor.

Hoshina’s eyes took on a look that betrayed his effort to guess what his lover was thinking and his fear of displeasing Yanagisawa. “Is something wrong?” Hoshina said cautiously.

“Your behavior at the meeting last night was reprehensible.” Yanagisawa hid his feelings behind criticism, which he often used to keep Hoshina at a distance. “You acted as if the kidnapping was the best thing that ever happened. Fortunately, the shogun didn’t notice-but everyone else did. Your attitude endangers us both.”

“My apologies,” Hoshina said, clearly chastened by Yanagisawa’s cold rebuke. “I’ll be more careful next time.”

Shared memories of every night they’d spent together, drinking and joking between bouts of sex, eased the tension between them. Yanagisawa relented, and although he only nodded his forgiveness, Hoshina’s mouth curved in a smile of relief.

“I admit that I do consider the crime to be an opportunity,” Hoshina said. Excitement underlay his businesslike tone. “If we rescue Lady Keisho-in and catch the kidnappers, we’ll rise in the shogun’s favor, while Sano and other rivals sink. Your power will be greater than ever.”