Laura Joh Rowland - Sano Ichiro v05 The Samurai's Wife.pdf

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Laura Joh Rowland
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The Samurai's Wife
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JAPAN
Genroku Period, Year 4, Month 6
(July 1691)
Prologue
Nine hundred years ago, the city was Heian-kyo, Capital of Peace and
Tranquillity, founded as seat of the emperors who ruled Japan. Now, long
after the reigning power had passed to the Tokugawa shoguns and their
stronghold in Edo far to the east, it is simply Miyako, or Kyoto-the capital.
But the shadows of the past haunt the present. The Imperial Palace still
dominates the city, as always, forever. There the current emperor and his
court exist as though suspended in time, masters of no one, human relics
of bygone splendor. After centuries of war and bloodshed, of fallen
regimes and changing fortunes, the eternal antagonisms, forgotten secrets,
and ancient dangers still survive...
In the imperial enclosure, the palace's innermost private heart, a warm
summer midnight enfolded the garden. Over flowerbeds and gravel paths,
the foliage of maple, willow, cherry, and plum trees arched in dark,
motionless canopies. The evening rain had ceased; a full moon glowed
through vaporous cloud. The calm surface of the pond reflected the sky's
luminosity. On an island in the pond's center, a rustic cottage stood amid
twisted pines. Inside burned a lantern, its white globe crisscrossed by the
window lattice.
West of the garden loomed the residences, ceremonial halls, offices,
storehouses, and kitchens of the emperor's household. Their tile roofs
gleamed in the moon's pallid radiance. From a passageway between two
buildings, another lantern emerged. It swung from the hand of the left
minister, chief official of the Imperial Court.
He strode along the pond toward a stone bridge leading to the island. Heat
hazed the air like a moist veil. Fireflies twinkled feebly, as if the humidity
quenched their light. A waterfall rippled; frogs croaked. The chirps of
crickets and shrill of cicadas blended into a solid fabric of sound stretched
across the night. The lantern cast the shadow of the left minister's tall
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figure dressed in archaic imperial style-wide trousers and a cropped jacket
whose long train dragged on the ground. Beneath his broad-brimmed
black hat shone the sallow face of a man in middle age, with the arched
brows and haughty nose inherited from ancestors who had held his post
before him. As he followed a path between the trees toward his secret
rendezvous, anticipation increased his pace. A smile hovered upon his
mouth; he drew deep breaths of night air.
The drowsy sweetness of lilies and clover drifted heavenward over the
pond's marshy scent, masking the rich summer odors of damp earth,
grass, night soil, and drains. A sense of well-being intoxicated the left
minister, heady as the night's aromatic breath. He felt as vigorous as in his
youth, and extraordinarily alive. Now he could look back through years of
anguish with detachment.
Fifteen years ago, an unfortunate convergence of fate and deed had
condemned him to serve two masters. Birthright had placed him in a
station at the heart of palace affairs, in a position to know everything
worth knowing. A crime committed in passion had rendered him
vulnerable to persons outside the sequestered world of the court's five
thousand residents. His two best qualities-intelligence and a gift for
manipulating people-had doomed him to live in two worlds, an impotent
slave in one, isolated from family, friends, and colleagues in the other.
He'd been an actor playing two opposing roles. But now, having reclaimed
the power to shape his own destiny, he stood ready to unite his two
worlds, with himself at their summit.
Tonight would bring a taste of the rewards to come.
The light in the pavilion kindled the left minister's eagerness. He walked
faster as a surge of sexual arousal fed his new sense of omnipotence.
Although uncertainty and danger lay ahead, he was buoyed by confidence
that soon he would realize his highest ambitions, his deepest desires.
Tonight everything was already prepared, an advance celebration of his
triumph.
Along the pond, a bamboo grove rustled in the breezeless air. The left
minister paused, then dismissed it as the movement of some harmless
feral creature and continued on his way. But the rustling followed him.
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