The Incense Game si-16

by Laura Joh Rowland

“Not at all.” Even though Yoritomo had never complained, and always professed himself eager to do whatever Yanagisawa wanted, Yanagisawa had hated to make Yoritomo sacrifice himself for his father’s political goal. Because he’d loved Yoritomo. But love wasn’t an issue with his other sons. “He should be glad to cooperate. He’ll have a brilliant future.”

  As brilliant as Yoritomo’s? The question was written on Kato’s face. Yanagisawa pretended not to notice. Kato asked, “When do you decide which son gets to do the honors?”

  “I’m going to look them over today,” Yanagisawa said.

  His heartbeat quickened with anticipation that had little to do with the prospect of advancing his political aims, thwarting Ienobu, or punishing Sano. He was surprised to find himself wishing that one of his other sons could fill the emptiness in him. The strength of his desire was alarming.

  10

  “Keep me company while I eat.” Reiko invited the maid at the Hosokawa estate.

  The maid eagerly scrambled closer. “Thank you, mistress.”

  “I sensed that Lady Hosokawa and Tama aren’t on very good terms,” Reiko hinted.

  That was all it took to open the floodgates. “They hate each other,” the maid said with relish. “When Lord Hosokawa brought Tama in as his concubine, Lady Hosokawa was so jealous. He gave Tama her own servants and her own rooms. When he’s here, he spends his nights with her. He only went to Lady Hosokawa’s bed to get children. After he had enough, he stopped going.”

  A daimyo needed one legitimate son to be his heir, others in case the first didn’t survive, and daughters to use as political pawns in the marriage market, Reiko knew.

  “Tama put on airs. She acted as if she were the lady of the house.” The maid grimaced in distaste. “Lady Hosokawa was furious. But Lord Hosokawa made her be nice to Tama.”

  It was a story Reiko had heard often. How cruel the custom of taking concubines could be to wives! Again, Reiko felt lucky to be married to Sano.

  “Lady Hosokawa got back at Tama,” the maid said gleefully. “She put mouse dung and dead flies in Tama’s food. Tama got sick and didn’t know why.”

  Another spell of queasiness lapped at Reiko as she thought of the poisoned incense. Had Lady Hosokawa done worse than contaminate food to make her rival sick? Reiko drank more tea, combating the nausea that came with her knowledge that there were even better suspects than Lady Hosokawa within the clan.

  “How did Myobu and Kumoi get along?” Reiko asked, duty-bound to bring Sano the truth even if it wasn’t what he liked to hear.

  The maid shook her head regretfully. “They were the sweetest little babies, and I loved them both. But the rivalry between Lady Hosokawa and Tama increased after they were born. Myobu had nicer clothes and more toys than Kumoi. She had teachers to teach her how to read and write and arrange flowers and play the koto and sing. Kumoi didn’t. Because Myobu was Lord Hosokawa’s legitimate daughter.”

  Whereas Kumoi was only his bastard, even though he’d recognized her as his own and professed to Sano that he’d loved her. The custom was cruel to children, too.

  “It didn’t help that Kumoi was prettier than Myobu,” the maid went on. “Myobu was jealous. Their mothers were always comparing them. Kumoi was their father’s favorite. They were born to hate each other. They fought all the time.”

  Had their hatred been great enough for one to have poisoned the other and, by accident, herself? Reiko’s suspicion tended even more strongly toward the Hosokawa family.

  “Things got even worse when they grew up,” the maid said. “Myobu was the elder, so Lord Hosokawa looked to marry her off first. She got a proposal from the daimyo clan that has the estate across the street. They’re allies of Lord Hosokawa. The daimyo ’s second son needed a wife. He was young and handsome and rich. A perfect match for Myobu.

  “The trouble started at the miai.” That was the first formal meeting between a prospective bride and groom and their families. “Kumoi was there. The young lord couldn’t take his eyes off her. He barely looked at Myobu. And Kumoi couldn’t take her eyes off him. They fell in love.”

  That was trouble indeed. “Did the marriage go through?” Reiko asked.

  “Oh, yes. Both families wanted it. And Myobu liked the young lord.”

  There was a sound of small feet padding down the hall. The maid looked toward the door and smiled. Reiko turned to see a toddler with fat, rosy cheeks. The maid held out her arms. He ran to her, and she sat him on her lap. He sucked his thumb while he soberly studied Reiko.

  “This is Myobu’s son.” The maid’s eyes welled.

  Pitying this child who’d lost his mother, Reiko said a quick, silent prayer for her own unborn baby. “What did Kumoi do after Myobu became engaged?”

  “She accepted it. Or so we thought.” The maid peeked out the door and continued in a whisper: “A few months later-the day before the wedding-we found out that Kumoi was with child. The father was her sister’s fiance.”

  Reiko’s mouth opened in shock.

  “Kumoi confessed that she and the young lord had been secretly meeting. Oh, you should have heard the uproar! Lord Hosokawa scolded Kumoi. Lady Hosokawa called her a whore and blamed Tama for not raising her properly. Tama had a fit because Kumoi had ruined herself. Myobu cried because Kumoi had seduced her fiance. And Kumoi begged Lord Hosokawa to let her marry the young lord. She said he wanted her for his wife, not Myobu.”

  “I never heard this,” Reiko said, amazed because something this big, involving two such important clans, should have created a scandal.

  “It was hushed up,” the maid whispered. “The young lord’s parents forced him to marry Myobu, even though he didn’t want to. Lord Hosokawa sent Kumoi to the countryside to wait for her baby to be born.”

  At least her family hadn’t disowned her, as often happened in cases when a woman became pregnant out of wedlock. Reiko said, “So Kumoi was allowed to come back home to live afterward.”

  The maid nodded. “Tama couldn’t bear to be parted from her. And Lord Hosokawa loved her too much to cast her off.” She added, “Lady Hosokawa didn’t like it, though.”

  Reiko could imagine. “Why didn’t they find a husband for Kumoi?” That was the common, practical solution.

  “They tried. A lot of people want to marry into the Hosokawa clan. They didn’t know she was spoiled goods. And she was beautiful. She got lots of proposals. But whenever she had a miai, she acted rude and ugly. She chased all the men away. She didn’t want to marry anyone except the young lord.”

  “But she knew she couldn’t have him.”

  “Well, she did have him, in a way. She was his concubine. She lived with him and Myobu, in their house in town. He still loved her. He barely paid any attention to Myobu.”

  “I see,” Reiko said. The contentious relationship between Lady Hosokawa and Tama had been reenacted by their daughters.

  “Where is Myobu’s husband?” Reiko asked. Sano would want to talk to him.

  “In Higo Province. He helps take care of things there while Lord Hosokawa is in Edo. He’d been there four months. A message was sent to tell him that Myobu and Kumoi were missing. I don’t know if it got through.” The maid blinked away fresh tears and hugged the little boy. “He’ll have to be told they’re dead.”

  His absence cleared him of any role in the crime except furnishing a possible reason for it. Reiko remembered Sano telling her that the sisters had sneaked out of the Hosokawa estate to go to their fatal incense lesson. “What were Myobu and Kumoi doing here on the day of the earthquake? Why weren’t they at their own home?”

  “They lived here when Myobu’s husband was away. They couldn’t be alone together-without him to keep them under control, they’d have torn out each other’s throats.”

  “What became of Kumoi’s baby?” Reiko expected to hear that it had been given to a family retainer to raise.

  “He’s right here.” The maid bounced the little boy on her lap. He chortled. “Myobu adopted him. She g
ot back at Kumoi for taking her husband, you see. She became the baby’s mother. When he got older, he would have been told that Kumoi was his aunt.”

  What a cruel revenge! Reiko was appalled.

  “Myobu didn’t do it just to be mean, though,” the maid went on. “She couldn’t have a child of her own, because her husband never touched her after their wedding night.” He’d have had relations with her then, to consummate the marriage and make it legal. “He needed an heir, the boy was his, and she wanted a baby. Adopting the boy was the best thing for everybody.”

  Reiko tried to imagine a rival stealing her child. She felt a stabbing sensation in her womb. She felt antipathy toward Myobu but also pity for the wife, forced to witness the love between her husband and sister, doomed to barrenness. She also felt repugnance toward Kumoi for selfishly sabotaging her sister’s marriage. Reiko couldn’t imagine a scenario more likely to lead to murder.

  A shadow darkened the threshold. There stood Lady Hosokawa, her expression disapproving. She must have guessed that the maid was giving Reiko a whiff of the family’s dirty linens. “There are other guests for you to attend to,” she told the maid. “Escort Lady Reiko out.”

  Reiko soon found herself standing on the veranda in the cold. As she crossed the courtyard to her palanquin, she was elated to have gleaned so much information but troubled. Everything she’d heard placed the blame for the murders within the Hosokawa clan, and the logical culprit was either Myobu or Kumoi. She hoped Sano or Hirata would turn up evidence that implicated someone else.

  11

  Foul smoke from the crematoriums still lingered in the Asakusa Temple district when Sano and his troops arrived there. Once, pilgrims from all over Japan had flocked to Asakusa to worship and to patronize the shops, teahouses, and restaurants, but now people came to gawk at the ruined temples. Monks and priests guarded salvaged religious treasures from looters and lived in a tent camp that occupied the onetime marketplace inside the broken red torii gate.

  Sano easily located Mizutani’s neighborhood, an enclave of houses that still stood. Throughout Edo, such enclaves poked up from the flattened ruins around them like anthills. Often there seemed no explicable reason why they’d survived when similar structures had collapsed. Here, two rows of houses faced each other across a narrow road. Their ground floors contained shops in which Sano saw empty bins and shelves. People in the living quarters on the upper stories peeked suspiciously at Sano’s party. Sano had heard that gangs had forced residents out of intact homes and taken them over. The police and army were spread too thin to stop it. In the new Edo, crime flourished.

  A gaunt woman beseeched a man who stood outside a house at the center of one row. “Please, just a few coppers.” She held out a child wrapped in a torn quilt. “For my baby.”

  The man was about sixty years of age, with the well-fed aspect of a rich merchant. His padded brown coat was made of cotton but looked new and warm. “Sorry, I can’t help you.”

  “My baby is sick. He needs medicine.” The woman’s voice quavered. “Or he’ll die.”

  Sano dismounted. He saw that the baby was emaciated, too weak to cry, its eyes bright with fever.

  “If I give you my money, how am I going to live?” the merchant said. “Sorry.”

  “But I’m your neighbor!” The woman burst into tears. “I took care of your wife when she was sick. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  The man shrugged. “Things are different now. It’s everybody for himself.”

  Sano had witnessed similar scenes too many times. Although the earthquake had brought out the best in some people, who generously shared whatever they had with those less fortunate, others hoarded their goods. Perhaps the crisis only served to reinforce one’s natural character.

  Weeping, the woman stumbled away. Sano sent his attendant to give her a few coins. She cried, “A thousand thanks, master! May the gods bless you!”

  “That was a nice thing to do,” the merchant said. His face and hands had a soft, droopy texture that reminded Sano of a melting candle. A whiff of incense hovered around him. His shrewd eyes noted the Tokugawa crests on Sano’s garments. He seemed to realize he’d made a poor impression on a high government official and hurried to justify himself. “These people would take everything from me if I let them, and then where would I be? They already looted my shop.”

  “I won’t criticize you.” Sano didn’t feel in a position to do so. No matter that he tried to help people in need; he, like this man, must look out for his own interests. He wasn’t only investigating the murders to serve justice or prevent a war; he had his family to protect. Sano introduced himself, then said, “I’m looking for Mizutani. Is that you?”

  “None other.” The incense master’s smeared features arranged themselves in an expression of wariness combined with eagerness to please. “How may I be of service?”

  “Tell me about you and Madam Usugumo.”

  “What about her?” That Mizutani didn’t want to talk about her was obvious from the dismay in his eyes. “She’s dead.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I haven’t seen her since before the earthquake. Her house fell into a crack in the ground.” The concern in Mizutani’s voice didn’t hide his glee. “I assumed she was buried and crushed inside.”

  Maybe he knew because he’d poisoned her incense and spied on her while she and her pupils breathed the smoke and died, Sano thought.

  Mizutani regarded Sano with sudden apprehension. “She is dead, isn’t she?”

  “Yes,” Sano said, “but it wasn’t the earthquake that killed her.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Let’s have this conversation indoors.” Sano wanted a look around Mizutani’s house.

  Although leeriness molded his forehead into a frown, Mizutani ushered Sano inside the shop, which was empty but still smelled strongly of incense. “The looters took my stock and my equipment, you see,” Mizutani complained, leading Sano up the stairs. “Heaven knows what they thought they could do with it. Sell it, I guess. You can’t eat incense or mortars and pestles.” They entered the living quarters. “Please forgive me, it’s a little crowded. I’m storing the things I managed to save. Nobody wants incense lessons these days, but I’ve been lucky to sell incense for funerals.”

  The room was jammed with iron trunks, ceramic urns and jars, and a workbench cluttered with tools, dishware, and scales. Small drawers in a cabinet overflowed with pellets and sticks of incense, barks, roots, and granules, pieces of deer antler and rhinoceros horn, and vials of liquid ingredients. The air was so saturated with their sweet, sour, bitter, and animal aromas that Sano could taste them. A crucible on a brazier contained black goo and emitted tarry smoke.

  Mizutani cleared a space on the floor for him and Sano to sit. “May I offer you some refreshments?”

  “No, thank you, I’ve already eaten.” Everything Mizutani had must be permeated with incense, and Sano thought it wise not to accept food from a suspect in a poisoning.

  “How did Usugumo die?” Mizutani asked.

  “She was murdered, with poisoned incense. She was playing an incense game with two ladies, her pupils. They died, too.”

  Mizutani’s droopy mouth gaped. His teeth were yellow and the gums red, as if from an internal heat that had given his skin its melted-wax appearance. “Do you think I did it? Is that why you’re here?”

  “Did you do it?” Sano asked.

  “Me? No! Of course not!”

  Sano counted too many denials. “Tell me about the arguments you had with Usugumo.”

  “Who-” Mizutani pulled a face. “The neighborhood headman must have told you. That busybody.”

  “What were the arguments about?”

  Mizutani looked around, as if seeking an excuse for not answering. Failing to find one that he thought Sano would accept, he sighed. “She was stealing my pupils. The ungrateful wretch! Everything she had, I gave her!” Mizutani thumped his chest with his loose-fl
eshed hand. “Do you know what she was before she became an incense teacher?” He didn’t wait for Sano to say no. “She was a courtesan in Yoshiwara, that’s what!”

  Yoshiwara was the pleasure quarter, the one place in Edo where prostitution was legal. The prostitutes, called courtesans, plied their trade in pleasure houses owned by merchants and regulated by the government. Samurai were officially banned from Yoshiwara but flocked there nonetheless. So did other men, from all classes, who could afford the high prices of the women, the drink, and the festivities. But the earthquake had wrecked the brothels and teahouses and put at least a temporary end to the glittering, glamorous world of Yoshiwara.

  “I started going to Yoshiwara after my wife died. That was eight years ago,” Mizutani said. “I was lonely, I wanted female company, you see. It was fun for a while.” He smiled reminiscently, then sobered. “But it cost too much. Buying the right clothes to wear, the trips there and back in a boat. And the women are so expensive. Not just to sleep with-I had to throw parties for three nights in a row beforehand. Afterward, I had to buy presents for them if I wanted to have them again.”

  Yoshiwara had many rituals that customers were required to observe, which added to the mystique of Yoshiwara and made money for the proprietors of brothels, teahouses, and other businesses associated with the trade.

  “I had decided to give it up, when I met Usugumo.” Nostalgia softened Mizutani’s tone. “She was beautiful and charming and clever. And in bed-” He gave a lascivious shudder. “I got to thinking, why not buy her freedom? Take her home and have her all to myself, all the time? And never have to spend another copper in Yoshiwara.”

  Some courtesans in Yoshiwara were sent to work there as punishment for petty crimes. They could leave when their sentences were finished. Others were sold into prostitution as children by their parents. They could leave after they’d repaid their purchase price to the brothel owner, but even the most popular, highest-priced courtesans could rarely afford to buy their own freedom. The brothels charged them for their clothes, room, and board. Every day they lived in Yoshiwara they went deeper into debt. They depended on patrons to set them free.