The Fire Kimono by Laura Joh Rowland

marched through the kitchen and dishes shattered. Her room filled with soldiers who surrounded her bed. She pulled the quilt up to her chin and stared in fright at them through eyes clouded by old age.
    Hana, as old as she but far braver, fluttered around the soldiers like a hen trying to protect a chick. “How dare you break into this house?” she shrilled. “What are you doing?”
    The soldiers ignored her. The leader stepped close to the bed and demanded, “Are you Etsuko?”
    Unable to speak, she nodded.
    “What do you want with my mistress?” Hana said.
    “You’re under arrest,” he said. “Get up. You’re coming with us.”
    “Under arrest for what?” Hana cried in outrage.
    “For murder.”
    Even though flabbergasted, Etsuko felt a sense of resignation, of a prophecy come true. For forty-three years she’d dreaded this day. Her past had caught up with her at last.
    The sword came swishing through the air toward Sano. He dodged, whirled, and counterattacked. Masahiro lunged and struck at him again. Sano parried. Their wooden blades clacked as they hit, cleaved empty space while they performed a dance of simulated battle.
    No matter how busy he was, Sano tried to make time for early-morning combat practice with Masahiro. It was their special time together, a peaceful oasis in his often tumultuous days. The sun climbed above the wall of the compound where they fought, splaying their shadows across the gravel-strewn ground. Son charged at father, blade swinging, as the gate opened and Detective Marume appeared. Sano’s concentration on the battle was disrupted. He turned, a fatal mistake. Masahiro’s sword whacked him hard across his rear end.
    “Ow!” Sano yelled.
    Masahiro’s hand flew to his mouth. “I’m sorry, Father! I didn’t mean to hit you!”
    “No, don’t apologize,” Sano said, rubbing his buttocks. “I deserved it. Let that be a lesson to you: When you’re fighting, never take your attention off your opponent.”
    He faced Detective Marume, who hid a smile. “What?”
    “There’s an old woman here to see you. She turned up at the castle gate, demanded to be taken to you, and refused to leave,” Marume said apologetically. “She pestered the guards until they gave in. She says her name is Hana.”
    “Hana!” Now Sano was concerned. Hana was his mother’s longtime servant. He’d known her all his life; she’d helped raise him. She accompanied his mother on extremely rare visits to his estate. That she would come now, alone, could only mean something bad.
    Sano tossed his sword to Masahiro, said, “Keep practicing,” and headed indoors. He found Hana standing in the reception room, guarded by two soldiers, wringing her hands in the apron she wore over her indigo-and-gray-striped kimono.
    “Sano-san!” She was a tiny, wiry woman with gray hair so thin that her scalp showed through it. She had pouchy cheeks, bags under her eyes, and skin mottled with brown spots, but she’d lost none of her energy to old age. She ran to Sano and exclaimed, “Praise the gods, I was afraid I’d never reach you!”
    Sano dismissed the guards. “It’s all right, I’m here now,” he told Hana. “What’s wrong? Is it my mother?”
    His mother had seemed in good health the last time he’d visited her-when? Almost three months ago? But she was nearly sixty years old. Sano feared the worst.
    “She’s been arrested!” Hana cried.
    “Arrested!” Shock hit Sano. “By whom?”
    “Tokugawa soldiers. They walked into the house this morning and dragged her out of bed.”
    Sano’s widowed mother lived in the humble house where he’d grown up. When he’d begun working for the shogun and moved into Edo Castle, he’d brought her with him, but she’d been so homesick, and so intimidated by her new surroundings, that she’d been unable to eat or sleep. Hana, who’d come with her, had told Sano, “If she stays here, she’ll die. You must send her home.” Sano had, and she’d lived there