Barako took them into her room, inviting Sakimi to sit on the matted floor, while she kneeled behind her writing desk. It was her one possession of pride outside of her armor and weapons. It was dark, the lacquered surface scarred from heavy use.
Barako looked up at Doreni and invited him to sit too.
“Wait outside,” he said to the guards. He slid the door shut behind them and kneeled too.
Good. We are as calm as the situation permits. What Sakimi had to say was not going to make things easier. At least Barako had ensured that Doreni would not be surrounded by his kin when he heard what had happened.
“Tell Lieutenant Doreni what you told me,” Barako said. “Explain to him why you were not with the Hiruma bushi when they were attacked.”
Sakimi looked at her uncertainly.
“Leave nothing out,” Barako said. “That is most important.” It was. Sooner or later, Doreni would hear what had lured Sakimi to the other end of the hall. Better he find out this way. Better he see that she wanted him to know it all, that she was concealing nothing.
“Haru,” Doreni said, when Sakimi had finished her account. “You had us climbing around on the roof,” he said to Barako, “to no purpose at all, when you had proof the oni was Haru?”
Barako delayed answering him directly. “Should we first agree that Bushi Sakimi is quite capable of protecting herself?”
After a moment, Doreni gave a curt nod.
“You have both our thanks for your help,” Barako told Sakimi. “You may resume your other duties.”
She waited until Sakimi had seen herself out, then asked, “What proof? Sakimi heard Haru’s voice, and Haru was not there. Why would we think he was?”
“Someone was.”
“Something was,” she corrected. “Certainly. But why think it was Haru? Isn’t this evidence of his innocence? If the oni has disguised itself as him, why make it obvious? Why expose the disguise? Isn’t it far more useful to its ends to use Haru’s voice to sow discord? Are we not falling into its trap?”
“And if it is Haru,” Doreni countered, “it could count on precisely this defense, and so achieve the same ends.”
She did not have an answer at the ready for that.
“Haru disappeared into the City of Night’s Hunger,” Doreni went on. “No one saw what happened. He was gone for days before you and Ochiba arrived at the tower. Why think that was him that came out?” Doreni was remorseless, using reason against Barako. He had not been as weakened by his anger and grief as she had thought. “You have very little reason to believe that Haru is what he claims to be.”
“You have as little to show the contrary.”
He shook his head. “You know better than that, Lieutenant Barako. I’m sure you do. But your loyalty to Daimyō Akemi prevents you from seeing clearly. Your loyalty does you credit. But it is leading you astray. You do not believe Haru is the oni because you do not want to believe it.” He pressed the attack. “No, that’s wrong. I think you do see more than you say. You do believe he is the oni, even though you do not wish to.”
Barako stared at him, marveling at the scale of his ambition, how he followed its ends even now. His grief for his son’s death was real. His anger over the death of his samurai was real. And yet, he had seen the opportunity the killings created for him, and he was seizing it. He was working to make her his ally, as he had at the feast before the coming of the storm.
Am I any better? Have I not been trying to make him my ally?
Only, she thought, because she was trying to head off this sort of power game.
Then she thought that rationalization sounded thin. She felt a wave of disgust, for herself, for Doreni, for all the machinations of mortals that played into the hands of the powers of the Shadowlands.
“You presume to know my mind,” she said. I don’t even know it myself. “You go too far.”
“I am prepared to go further. Haru’s trial has been delayed because Ochiba cannot speak for or against him. There can be no more delay. I will see to that, and I do not care at what cost.”
We are already here. At open defiance. Barako thanked the fates that this conversation was private. “You mean to have him answer for his foolishness now? Don’t we have better uses for our time?”
“Not for his foolishness, no. That action, we know was committed by Haru. I charge this being with murder. With being an oni.”
“Do you know what you are doing?”
“I do.”
“Your intent is to engulf the castle in a political war?”
He looked uncomfortable for the first time. “No.”
“Then will you listen to caution? You have sworn an oath of loyalty to the daimyō too. Remember that. Do not bring shame upon yourself and disorder upon Striking Dawn.” She held up a hand before he could respond. “Your questions must be answered. They must, if we are to survive. But consider what will happen if you push us to the brink. What will happen if you are seen to attack Haru for political ends, and you are wrong? Let me speak to Akemi. We will go to her together, but let me speak.”
“We will go together.” He would grant her nothing more.
She nodded.
They left her chamber and went up to the third floor. The daimyō’s chambers took up most of it. Four Kakeguchi guards were posted outside the door.
“Is the daimyō awake?” Barako asked them. “Has she heard what has happened below?”
“She has received the news,” one of them said. “She left word that you should be admitted at once.”
She drew Doreni aside. “You will speak to her,” she said quietly. “You have my word. All I ask is that you let me speak with her first.”
“You demand a great deal of trust when I have none to give.”
“You have nothing to gain by storming in and making demands. What could I possibly say to her that would turn her against you, when you are here to charge her son and heir with being an oni?”
After a moment’s thought, he gave her that quick, sour nod again, as if any concession, no matter how reasonable, was an intolerable wound to his pride, one that incurred a debt he intended to collect.
Barako went back to the guards. They opened the doors for her and she went in alone. The flickering of the lamps casting dark shadows across the ornately painted screens that partitioned the room. The daimyō was sitting on a low cushion, next to a small sunken hearth that had been covered with a wooden platform and a heavy quilt to keep her warm, she still looked cold, hunched and old. Without looking up she said, “I can guess that you bring me still more ill tidings.”
“I do.” Barako stood before her at the hearth. “Doreni waits outside. He insists that we interrogate Haru, and I’m afraid he is right.” She spoke gently but firmly.
“No.” Akemi shook her head with a violence that sent a tremor down her frame.
“Doing so may exculpate him.”
“No. He is my son. He will be the daimyō of Striking Dawn Castle. He is not an oni. He will not be subjected to a politically driven suspicion.” There was little authority in Akemi’s voice. She became weak, querulous.
“Doreni follows the path of his ambition,” Barako told her. “But he has lost his son. Two more Hiruma are dead. He is within his rights to demand an accounting.”
“Not from my son.”
Remain patient, Barako told herself. You may be the only one who still can. “You know I am loyal to you, Lady Akemi. I will fight for you to the death. It is out of love for you, for our family, and for Striking Dawn that I speak now. If you refuse Doreni’s request, the divisions in the castle will grow worse. We will come closer to being defeated by the oni.”
“Haru is Haru,” Akemi said. “He did not kill those Hiruma. He was with me all the time.”
Barako looked around. “Where is he?”
“Asleep.” She gestured toward a closed panel door. “He is still very weak.”
“Where have you been?” She hated herself for questioning her daimyō.
“Here.” Akemi seemed too worn to object.
“Did you sleep at all?”
Akemi did not answer.
Barako sighed. “Then you don’t know if he has been here all along.”
Akemi stirred in the chair. “He has,” she cried.
“We have to be sure.”
“How? How will you be sure? Will Doreni stab him, and if he dies, we will know he was innocent?”
Barako said nothing.
“I am not shielding him. He will answer for the disaster at Night’s Hunger. Didn’t I say he would be judged?”
“And now he must be,” Barako said softly.
Akemi slumped lower. “He is my son.” She was barely audible.
Barako knelt beside her. She took Akemi’s hands in hers. The daimyō’s hands were cold, and fragile as parchment. They trembled. “What if he isn’t?”
Akemi aged another ten years before Barako’s eyes. With a struggle, she got to her feet. “I’ll wake him,” she said. “Fetch Doreni. Let him do his worst.”
The interrogation took place in Akemi’s chamber. Akemi had removed herself to a low chair. Her gaze did not waver from her son once. Haru remained standing. He was pale, his skin sheened with sweat. He faced Doreni with brittle defiance.
“Go on, then,” Haru said. “Ask me what you will.”
“No,” said Doreni after a long moment, his face hard. “If your guise has been this convincing, your answers will be too.”
“Then what is the point of this?” Akemi asked wearily.
“He must be placed under guard,” Doreni told her, as implacable and cold as if the castle were already his.
“You would imprison my son?”
“Yes.”
“I will not permit it.” An ember of Akemi’s internal fire flared up.
“Doing so would decide things one way or another,” Barako said, hating herself. This is the only path forward. This is what has to be done to save Striking Dawn. “If the oni strikes again while Haru is…” She forced herself to say it, “… is imprisoned, then his innocence is proven.”
Haru looked at her, his eyes wide. “You don’t suspect me, do you?” he asked.
“We have to be sure,” she said. And I am not. The neediness in his voice certainly sounded like Haru. But that was not enough.
“Do you think I am the oni?” he demanded.
“I know only that your mother, Lieutenant Doreni and I are not.” I don’t know what I think. The more you seem like Haru, the more I fear the oni’s skill at mimicry.
Haru’s face crumpled in pain. His shoulders sagged. “Lock me up,” he said. “If that is what it takes, let it be done.”
“No!” Akemi cried. “I forbid it.”
“It will be done because it must be,” said Doreni.
“I have forbidden it. That is an end to the matter.”
“You will force me to break my oath of loyalty for the good of the castle.”
“Are you threatening me?” Akemi rose from her chair.
The ember had ignited a blaze. Akemi was seeing the consequences of what Doreni was demanding, Barako thought. She was looking to the longer-term effects, becoming a political animal again, as any daimyō had to be. Haru’s position was precarious enough. Outright imprisonment would give substance to the worst suspicions about him. His claim to Striking Dawn would all but evaporate.
She was right, Barako thought sadly. But it didn’t matter. The oni had destroyed Haru’s future. Nothing could change that.
Except Akemi refused to accept this.
“If you have so far forgotten yourself,” the daimyō said to Doreni, “do not forget that you Hiruma are a minority in this castle.”
“We are now,” Doreni said, calm in the certainty of victory. “If you refuse, everyone will know that you protected what may be the oni. If you refuse, and it kills again, what do you think will happen to your authority?”
Akemi wilted. She sat back down, her head in her hands.
“Perhaps,” Barako said, before something was said that could not be withdrawn, “there is room for compromise?” Look at me, Ochiba. Look at me trying to sail the political waters. Are you laughing yet?
“Compromise how?” Doreni asked, skeptical.
“It is not necessary to bring Haru out of these quarters in chains.”
“I had not suggested we do that.”
“Having him visibly under guard would amount to the same. Can there be some flexibility about where Lieutenant Haru will be guarded?”
Akemi raised her head at the sound of even the smallest hope. Haru did not react at all. He was staring at the floor, sunk in apathy.
“What do you have in mind?” Doreni asked.
“I was thinking about him staying in these quarters?”
“With its windows?”
Barako shook her head. “I was thinking of the shrine. It has no windows, and only one door. A strong one. Well-guarded, it is as secure a prison as any chamber in the castle.” She used the word prison for Doreni’s benefit, to get him to agree.
He looked thoughtful. “The shrine…” he repeated.
“If he is the oni,” said Barako, “that will not be a place of comfort.” She gave up trying to convince herself that her argument was solely to convince Doreni. To her dismay, she realized that she fully believed in what she was saying. They had to know about Haru, one way or another, and shutting him in the shrine would, she thought, be a blow to the oni if that was what he was.
Still Haru said nothing. He did not move. He appeared utterly disinterested in his fate.
The weight of the hammer strapped to Barako’s back was suddenly reassuring. She was glad she had it at hand. The more disconnected Haru seemed, the easier it was for her to imagine having to swing her weapon with intent to kill. Until the killings had begun, she had only thought about Haru with anger for what he had done, and the harm his foolishness had caused. Now, she was not sure if she thought of him as Haru at all.
“Very well,” Akemi said, grateful in defeat that she and her son would be spared the worst humiliations. “Let it be the shrine.”
Doreni took a step toward Haru. That jerked him back to life. He snatched his arm away from Doreni’s grasp. “I know the way,” he muttered. He straightened, seemed to gather his dignity for a defiant walk to the shrine. Then he deflated. He shrank in on himself. It was not the heir to Striking Dawn who left the hall, just ahead of Doreni. It was a prisoner.
When Haru was sealed in the shrine to Lord Hida, with three Hiruma and three Kakeguchi samurai assigned to guard the barricaded door, Barako and Doreni left Akemi’s chambers. Barako felt the daimyō’s eyes burning into the back of her neck. It did not matter that she had done the right thing, and that she had saved Haru from worse ignominy. Akemi saw Barako’s role in the imprisonment of Haru as a betrayal. Barako wondered if Akemi would ever trust her again.
Outside the daimyō’s quarters, Barako began, “If Haru is not the oni…”
“Yes,” said Doreni. “We must take other precautions.” His political victory achieved, the exhaustion of grief was catching up with him. He suddenly looked worn, a statue eroded by wind and rain.
“Every window is a chink in our defenses,” Barako said. “We cannot stop it from coming in where and when it wishes. So we must be strong. Full squads, then. No patrols with fewer than five bushi.”
“Do we have the numbers for that?”
“We will have to see that we do. If the shifts need to be twice as long, then so be it.” Even as she spoke, she knew such an effort could not be sustained indefinitely.
“There will be little sleep in Striking Dawn.”
I know. Oh, how I know. “Let us pray to the kami that sleep will return.”