“Put it down, or we’ll shoot you,” barked a samurai.

Reiko recognized his face, saw the bloody bruise on the side of his head: He was the leader she’d knocked unconscious. While she hesitated, a bow twanged. The arrow grazed her hand that held the dagger. She shrieked, and her fingers involuntarily jerked open. The dagger fell to the ground. The men advanced on Reiko. Terrified beyond speech, she backed away until stopped against a veranda.

“Not so brave now, are you?” the wounded leader mocked. Reiko saw vindictive humor in his eyes. “I bet you ran away because you wanted a little fun. Well, we’re going to have some now.”

He grabbed her arm. Reiko cried out and pulled away. Chuckling, he let her go. Another samurai caught her. Then the men were shoving her from one to another, laughing raucously. Hands pawed her body, loosed her hair from its pinned-up knot, and yanked its streaming tresses. Reiko struck and kicked the men, but they only laughed harder. Someone tore off her sash. As she tried to hold her robes closed, the men made lewd noises. They pushed her back and forth, spun her, and clutched her. Sky, forest, buildings, and savage faces swirled around Reiko as she helplessly stumbled. Fear and vertigo nauseated her. The men ripped off her kimono. Naked beneath her thin white under-robe, Reiko cowered.

“Leave me alone!” she screamed.

“We’re not finished,” the wounded samurai said, then told the other men, “Hold her down.”

The men seized her, and though Reiko fought until she was breathless, they forced her to lie on the ground. They pinned her arms over her head; they spread and held her legs. Above her towered their leader, huge and menacing.

“Now you’ll pay for what you did to me,” he said. He lowered himself on his hands and knees, straddling her. His comrades cheered and hooted, egging him on.

“No!” Tossing her head, Reiko strained against her “Let me go! Help, somebody, please!”

Hysteria dissolved her speech into inarticulate screams. The leader’s ugly, grinning face blotted out the sky. Then a voice rang out above the commotion: “Stop!”

The noise ceased. In the abrupt hush, wind swept the trees; thunder rumbled closer. The samurai atop Reiko turned his head sideways, and confusion replaced the lust on his face. Reiko lay paralyzed, uncertain what to expect.

“Get off her,” ordered the voice. It was deep, gruff, and harsh with anger. “The rest of you, move away.”

Relief and gratitude flooded Reiko as the samurai climbed off her. The circle of other men broke and they scattered. Reiko cautiously raised herself on one elbow. She watched her tormentors stand at attention, facing the central building. Her gaze followed theirs. On the veranda stood a man. The shade under the eaves obscured him, and all she could discern was that he had the shaved crown and two swords of a samurai. Fresh terror eclipsed her relief.

This man had spared her, but his authoritative manner, and the haste with which the other men had obeyed him, told Reiko that he was their superior. It must be he who’d ordered the massacre and the kidnapping.

Now he descended the steps of the veranda and came across the courtyard toward her. He walked with an odd gait that combined hesitance with samurai swagger. His head looked too big for his body, which was thickset and clothed in black. Across the skirt of his kimono swirled a brocade dragon. Its golden claws and emerald-scaled body undulated as the man moved; its snarling mouth spewed vermilion flames. Reiko scrambled to her feet, clutching her under -robe around herself. Vulnerable yet determined to meet the enemy with courage, she pushed back the hair that had fallen over her face and gazed up at the samurai.

He halted, stood frozen, and stared down at Reiko. She saw that he was younger than his voice had suggested-in his late twenties.

Beneath a rugged forehead and slanted dark brows, his eyes smoldered in their deep sockets. His nose was broad and strong, the nostrils flared like those of the dragon on his kimono. But his lips were soft, moist, and pursed; his chin receded. Reiko saw in his gaze the admiration that her beauty often provoked from men. Yet the samurai also beheld her with profound shock, as though he recognized her but disbelieved his eyes. Reiko didn’t recognize him: He was a stranger to her.

“Are you hurt?” he said, his gaze roaming over her body before returning to her face.

Unsettled by his intense scrutiny, Reiko looked away from the samurai. “No,” she whispered.

He stepped closer and slowly extended a hand, as if to touch her hair. Reiko saw, on the periphery of her vision, the longing in his expression; she heard him breathe through his wet mouth. She flinched. The samurai withdrew his hand, stepping back.

“They won’t hurt you,” he said in a tone clearly meant to convey an order to his men as well as reassure her.

But Reiko’s terror burgeoned. Even if they didn’t hurt her, would he? His strangeness sent a chill creeping through her.

The samurai bent and picked up her fallen kimono. He circled around her as she stood wide-eyed and quaking, wondering what he was doing but afraid to look. Then he gently dropped the kimono over her shoulders and pressed the sash into her hand. Reiko felt the warmth of his body while he stood close behind her and she tied the sash around her waist. She shuddered, retching on sudden nausea, because his gentleness revolted her more than did his men’s outright brutality.

“Take her back to the keep,” he ordered them.

Two samurai moved toward her. One was the man she’d wounded. Despite his master’s orders, he gripped her arm in a painful clasp that promised retribution. As the pair led her to a path that cut through the forest, Reiko glanced back at their leader. He stood outside his dingy castle watching her, arms folded, his expression brooding and sinister. The wind ruffled his robes, stirring the dragon alive.

Who was he? What were his reasons for the massacre and kidnapping? An aura of evil that surrounded him filled Reiko with dread. And what fate did he intend for her?

15

Hirata and Detectives Marume and Fukida rode up the steep stretch of highway toward Hakone, the eleventh post station on the Tōkaidō. The lofty altitude chilled the early morning. The sun diffused weak, silvery light through a veil of clouds, while mist saturated the air, blurred the forested hills, and reduced the distant mountains to peaked shadows against the sky. Ahead, a gate protected by Tokugawa soldiers blocked the road. Beyond the portals Hirata saw the rustic buildings of Hakone village.

“Let’s hope we have better luck today than last night,” Hirata called to his companions.

They’d spent last night at the tenth post station of Odawara. They’d loitered in the shops, bought drinks in each teahouse, and visited every inn, striking up acquaintances with locals and steering the conversation to the kidnapping. But although many people recalled seeing Lady Keisho-in’s party before the abduction, no one provided any clues to what had happened to the women. Nor had Hirata and the detectives found any trace of the kidnappers. Hirata had persuaded three drunken town officials to show him the checkpoint travel records. The list showed no group of men numerous enough to massacre Keisho-in’s entourage. Hirata surmised that the kidnappers had traveled separately to avoid attracting notice, given different destinations when the inspectors asked where they were going, and joined up at the ambush site. He’d searched the list for Lord Niu’s retainers, to no avail. If Lord Niu had sent troops to stage the ambush, they could have traveled under aliases; but for the first time, Hirata experienced doubts that his father-in-law was behind the crime. He wished he knew what Sano’s investigation had uncovered, far away in Edo.