He stalked down the path to the main shrine building, a wooden hut with a thatched roof and railed veranda, elevated on wooden posts and surrounded by a picket fence. Sano followed Ohira up the stone steps. “When your boyhood friends died, you swore to uphold the law and prevent others from committing crimes,” he said, referring to the story Ohira had told him yesterday. “By breaking your vow, you destroyed your own honor. You couldn’t openly confess and endanger your family, but you crave punishment.” He paused as Ohira pulled the rope that hung from the eaves, ringing the bell to summon the god. Leaving their shoes outside the door, they entered the shrine. “And you can’t bear to live while your son dies.”

In the anteroom, daylight filtered through the door and window gratings, casting soft diamond patterns on the polished cypress floor. Sacred white paper plaits hung from the pillars. The walls were covered with gifts to the shrine: model ships, swords, houses. White curtains shrouded the doorway to the inner sanctuary, receptacle for the god. A calm hush pervaded the air, which smelled of incense, candles, and pine resin. Chief Ohira dropped to his knees before the curtains, head bowed in tacit acknowledgment of Sano’s words. Sano knelt beside him. After a long moment, Chief Ohira spoke in a voice quiet with sad resignation.

“I compromised Deshima security and falsified the warehouse inventory on Governor Nagai’s orders. I didn’t want to, but what choice had I? A samurai must obey his superior.”

In Bushido, obedience was the supreme virtue, which often conflicted with individual morality and the law. Sano, who understood the conflict all too well, realized that guilt and self-hatred had caused Ohira’s physical infirmity, eroding body and spirit.

“Nagai said that if I refused,” Ohira continued, “he would replace me with someone who would allow the smuggling. He threatened to withdraw his patronage of Kiyoshi.” The chief’s voice cracked in anguish; he turned to Sano, hand extended in a plea for understanding. “What was I to do?” Then the rush of emotion subsided. Ohira bent his head over his folded hands. “Now all is lost.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Sano said.

“What do you mean?” Ohira’s voice held a glimmer of hope.

Sano had evidence; he had Ohira’s confession, which the chief, in his eagerness for punishment, would repeat to the tribunal. But he wanted more.

“Kiyoshi can be saved.” Sano hesitated, feeling a sudden unwelcome sense of identification with Jan Spaen. In view of what he meant to do, was he not also an exploiter of men? “Your son is not a smuggler or a murderer—his one crime was accusing me to protect you. If we can persuade him to tell the truth, he won’t have to die.”