Another, similar voice said, “Me, too. Let’s take a rest in here. Maybe he won’t notice we’re gone.”

The gate opened. Two young soldiers were beside Reiko before she had a chance to hide. “Hey, who are you?” one said. His friend asked, “What are you doing here?”

Reiko took in their almost identical pudgy faces and stocky builds, their belligerent expressions. She recognized them as the two guards she’d seen on her first trip to the keep, the men she’d come hunting. She wasn’t so far past her obsession with revenge that she’d forgotten it; she hadn’t forgotten her anger toward her son’s jailers. She still wanted to kill them.

She lashed her dagger at the soldiers. They leaped away, too surprised to fight back.

“Hey!” one of them exclaimed. “Why are you attacking us?”

“This is for what you did to my son!”

“I know who she is,” the second said. “She’s the chamberlain’s wife.”

Reiko carved wild swaths in the air with her blade. The men dodged. The first drew his sword. She slashed at his hand.

He yelled and let go of the weapon, a cut on his hand dripping blood. “She’s crazy!”

“I’m going to kill you!” Reiko shouted.

The second man grabbed her from behind. She stomped on his feet and banged her head against his face. He lost his grip on her, and she lunged at his comrade, who stumbled and fell on his back in the snow. Reiko bent over him, her dagger at his throat. The other pulled his sword.

“Throw that sword as far as you can, or he’s dead,” Reiko ordered.

The fallen man lay pop-eyed with fear, arms spread, hands and heels dug into the snow. His comrade hesitated in confusion. Reiko said, “Is this your brother?”

The man gulped. “Yes.” He flung his weapon away.

“The other one, too.”

He obeyed. “Please don’t hurt him.”

Reiko would have liked to kill them both, but she wasn’t so consumed by her anger that she didn’t realize they were worth more to her alive than dead. “Where is my son?” she demanded. When they looked dumbly at her, she said, “The little boy you kept in the cage. Where is he?”

“We-we don’t know,” said the soldier on the ground.

“Did he get out of the castle?”

The brothers traded glances. A different fear shone in their eyes. The man standing said reluctantly, “I guess we have to tell her.”

“Tell me what?” An awful idea stabbed Reiko. “That he didn’t get away? That you killed him?”

As the arc of her hope plunged downward, Reiko sucked in a deep breath, ready to cleave the soldier’s throat.

“No!” he cried, squirming desperately. “We let him go.”

“What?” Reiko stared at him, then his brother.

“We felt sorry for Masahiro,” said the brother. “He was a nice little boy. He was always polite to us, even though we locked him in the cage.

Reiko drank in this news of her son. Her heart warmed because the soldier’s description of Masahiro was so in character. Masahiro was not only nice and polite, he was clever enough to have befriended his captors.

“Lord Matsumae ordered us to put him to death,” said the soldier on the ground, “but we couldn’t bring ourselves to do it.”

“So we told Masahiro we were going to set him free,” said his brother. “We took him out of the keep. He wanted to leave a message for you and his father. We gave him a knife and a piece of charcoal to write with.” The man pointed at the words on the wall. “I guess you found it.”

Reiko’s jaw dropped in surprise that these soldiers she’d come to kill had helped Masahiro escape. If he was alive, she owed it to them. Hardly daring to breathe, she said, “When was this?”

“About twenty days before you got here.”

Reiko trembled as her hope soared anew. “Where did you take him?

“Out the gate. After that, he was on his own,” the brother said.

Reiko was horrified. “On his own? An eight-year-old boy, in a strange land?” And the northern winter would have already begun.

“Did you give him food to take, or money, or warm clothes, or advice on how to get home?”

“I wish we could have, but there wasn’t time,” the fallen soldier hastened to excuse their actions. “We had to get him out fast.”

A wail rose from within Reiko. The idea of Masahiro turned loose to fend for himself! Anything could have happened to him since he’d left the castle. She let her weapon dangle. The soldier eased away from her and stood. He and his brother regarded her with sympathy as well as caution. They took turns continuing their tale.

“We told Lord Matsumae we’d killed him. He believed us. But our lieutenant asked to see the body. Of course we couldn’t show it to him. So we made up a story that Masahiro had broken out of his cage.”

“The lieutenant sent us and some other troops out searching for Masahiro. He wasn’t in the castle, so we went into town.”

“My brother and I ran ahead of the others and found Masahiro before they did. He was at the harbor, trying to talk some fishermen into taking him across the sea in their boat. But then the others came. All we could do was tell him to run.”

“They chased him out of town and lost him in the woods. That was the last we saw of him.”

“We went out every night for the next few days, looking for Masahiro, but we never saw him again. We don’t know what’s become of him.”

Both men said humbly, “We’re sorry.”

Reiko couldn’t blame them; they’d saved Masahiro’s life. But that didn’t change the fact that he was gone, or let them off the hook. “I’m going to find my son,” she said, “and you’re coming with me!”

Reiko knew with bone-deep certainty that Masahiro was alive. She couldn’t believe she’d ever thought him dead. How misguided by fears and false clues she’d been! There was no mistake now. She clutched at the two young soldiers with the same fervor with which she’d almost killed them.

They looked sadly at her. “We’re sorry,” said one. The other said, We can’t leave our posts.“

Reiko saw that there was no use arguing. The soldiers’ duty was to the Matsumae clan, not a stranger in need. Her knees buckled, and she leaned against the wall. Masahiro had been out there in the wilds of Ezogashima, cold and hungry, lost and alone, for twenty days-during the last of which she had been trapped in the castle.

“What am I going to do?” she whispered.

Her first idea was to tell Sano and Hirata. They would think of something. But she didn’t know where they were, and even if she could find them while evading the Matsumae troops, what could they do? They were unfamiliar with the terrain. No matter their intelligence and strength, they were city men; they would be as lost and helpless in the forest as she. Reiko knew of only one person to call on. Someone whose friendship she’d rebuffed, who’d generously given aid but might not be willing this time. Someone whom Reiko still suspected of murder.

Wente.

“If there’s anything else we can do for you…?” one of the soldiers said anxiously.

Reiko’s mind raced through ideas and strategies, obstacles and threats. From them she devised a plan. “Yes, there is.” She told the men what she needed from them. But her plan’s success ultimately depended on Wente.