14

Sunshine fell across Reiko’s face and penetrated her closed eyelids. Jarred suddenly awake, she found herself sitting with the broken rafter on her lap, slumped against the wall of the prison. Rays of morning light pierced the window shutters and ceiling and meshed in the dusty air. Reiko bolted up. She’d meant to wait alert for the kidnappers, but sometime during the night she’d dozed off. Now she hastened to Midori, Keisho-in, and Lady Yanagisawa, who lay asleep and motionless.

“Wake up,” she said urgently, shaking them. As they groaned and stirred to life, Reiko said, “The kidnappers might arrive any moment. We must prepare.”

The loud, abrasive opening of the door reverberated up through the floor. They all jumped.

“They’re coming!” Midori cried.

Reiko pointed Midori and Keisho-in toward a back corner. “Sit over there. Hurry!” They obeyed. Reiko seated Lady Yanagisawa against the rear wall, opposite the door. The woman’s face was still vacant with drowsiness, her movements slow. “Do you remember what to do?” Reiko anxiously asked.

A hesitant nod from Lady Yanagisawa inspired little confidence in Reiko. She hurried to stand in her own place beside the door. She gripped the rafter in both hands, raising it like a club. As they all waited in suspense, footsteps thumped up the first flight of stairs. Reiko thought she heard only two men this time, and she was glad. The fewer of them, the better her chances.

The footsteps mounted higher. Outside, pigeons cooed and fluttered wildly on the roof; the lapping waves registered each moment. Suddenly Lady Yanagisawa said, “Reiko-san?”

“What?” Reiko said, disturbed that the woman should speak at a critical moment.

“Yesterday, when you said you think my husband loves me… Did you really mean it?” Lady Yanagisawa eyed Reiko as intently as though the answer was all that mattered.

Reiko was surprised that Lady Yanagisawa had heard what Reiko had told her while she’d seemed dead to the world. Though she regretted the lie, Reiko didn’t want to upset Lady Yanagisawa by admitting the truth. “Yes, I did mean it,” she said, and trained her gaze on the door.

Outside, the footsteps paused. Reiko’s heart raced; her breaths came fast as her hands tightened on her weapon. Keisho-in and Midori watched the door with dread. Lady Yanagisawa sat in apparent tranquility. The door opened. In stepped the cruel samurai who’d come yesterday. Suddenly Lady Yanagisawa flung back her head and let out a bloodcurdling scream. She tore open her kimono, baring her breasts. She clawed at them, and her fingernails raked raw scratches across her skin.

The samurai exclaimed at the sight of this woman who’d evidently gone insane. Reiko, Midori, and Keisho-in gaped, amazed, at Lady Yanagisawa as she kept screaming and her body twitched in violent spasms. She’d managed a better diversion than Reiko had expected. The samurai didn’t notice Reiko because Lady Yanagisawa had all his attention. Reiko swung the rafter with all her might at the samurai. The wooden beam struck his temple-and snapped in two. The long, broken half thudded to the floor. The samurai grunted in surprise. He pivoted toward Reiko. His eyes aflame with pain and rage, he drew his sword.

Horror filled Reiko as she looked from him to the useless stub she held. Keisho-in and Midori shrieked. Lady Yanagisawa dropped to all fours, half naked, bleeding, and panting. Suddenly the samurai’s eyes rolled upward. He toppled unconscious to the floor.

The peasant youth who’d brought the food yesterday rushed into the room, shouting, “What happened?” He carried a pail, which he set on the floor as he bent over his comrade.

Reiko tossed aside the stub, lunged, and shoved the youth. With a cry of surprise, he stumbled headlong across the room. He crashed against the wall. As he regained his balance and turned, Reiko lifted his pail that contained what looked to be soup. She hurled the pail at him.

It struck him in the stomach. Broth, seaweed, and tofu splattered the room. The youth gawked at the women. Across his childish, naive face flashed his dismay that the prisoners had rebelled and there was no one but him to restore order. Then awareness of his duty braced him. He let out a yell and charged at Reiko, hands extended to snatch.

She picked up the long end of the rafter and swatted his forehead. He fell, with a thud that shook the room, and lay unmoving.

In the sudden quiet, the women stared at their vanquished foes, then at each other. Wordlessly they shared their disbelief at the success of Reiko’s plan. That the whole battle had lasted just an instant amazed Reiko.

She bent, light-headed, from delayed excitation. Her heart banged wildly in her chest, but she couldn’t spare any time to recuperate. “Help me tie the men up,” she told Lady Yanagisawa.

Quickly they rolled over the samurai, removed his sash, and used the long cotton cloth to truss his ankles and wrists behind him; then they did the same to the peasant youth.

“Why not just kill them?” Lady Keisho-in said. “The way they’ve treated us, they deserve to die.”

“We don’t want their comrades to take revenge on you.” Reiko pulled off the men’s sandals and jammed their socks in their mouths so that when they woke, they couldn’t call to their comrades. She snatched up the samurai’s fallen sword and thrust it into Lady Yan-agisawa’s hands. “Use this to defend yourself and Midori and Lady Keisho-in if necessary.”

Lady Yanagisawa held the weapon as though afraid of cutting herself. “… But I don’t know how.”

There was no time for Reiko to teach her sword fighting. “Do the best you can,” Reiko said. She yanked the samurai’s dagger from the scabbard at his waist, then hurried to the door. “I must go now.”

“Good luck,” Midori said. “And please be careful!”

“Bring back the army,” Keisho-in commanded.

Lady Yanagisawa sat in her disheveled garments, the sword wavering in her grip, her expression forlorn.

Hating to leave her friends so helpless, Reiko slipped out the door. She found herself in an empty room whose barred windows gave a view of leafy branches. Walls of thick beams embedded in plaster, blackened by fire, enclosed this room and divided it from the prison. In its center, a wooden staircase slanted upward to a square hole in the ceiling. Daylight poured through the hole. The foot of the staircase ended at another opening in the floor. Clutching her stolen dagger, Reiko hastened to peer down the hole and saw more stairs zigzagging through the building’s lower levels. She paused, listening. She heard only the sounds of birds, water, and wind. Then she plunged down the stairs.

Loose, uneven slats wobbled under her sandals. She leapt over spaces where risers were missing. The smells of old smoke and rotted wood intensified. She passed through a room similar to that above. As she clambered down the next flight of stairs, the need for caution vied with her urge to hurry. She slowed her pace near the end of the staircase and hesitantly entered the bottom level.

This contained a room that must have once been an armory; hooks and racks for hanging weapons protruded from the walls. On the stone floor lay a rusted cannon. Double doors, made of heavy timbers and iron plates, beckoned Reiko. One door stood opened outward, framing a rectangle of daylight. Reiko ran to the door and peeked outside. A narrow landing preceded a short flight of stone steps that led to paved, empty ground. Beyond this, a forest of pines, cypress, and maple obscured the distance. To her right and left rose more trees that grew close beside the building. Reiko savored the prospect of freedom. She hurried down the steps into cool, humid fresh air and across the cracked paving stones. A gap in the forest marked the path along which the kidnappers must have brought her and the other women. There Reiko paused, looked backward to see if anyone was coming, and got her first glimpse of her prison.