Sano Ichiro 7 The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria (2002)

by Laura Joh Rowland

  Stifling an impulse to rage at them, Sano mustered his self-control. He said to the shogun, “That Police Commissioner Hoshina has demonstrated an association between Lady Wisteria and me isn’t proof that I’m a murderer or traitor.”

  “That the sōsakan-sama attempted to conceal the association indicates that he’s guilty,” Hoshina said quickly.

  Sano turned on his foe. “Just when does the book say I plotted against His Excellency and Lord Mitsuyoshi? Or is the story as vague about dates as it is untrue?”

  Caution narrowed Hoshina’s eyes. “Lady Wisteria marked the date as Genroku Year Five, the seventh month, on the night of the full moon.”

  “You mean you did. When you wrote the book, you made the mistake of specifying an exact time. My wife will swear that I was with her that night,” Sano said.

  “I certainly did not write the book. And the wife of a liar is no more honest than he,” Hoshina scoffed. “Everyone knows Lady Reiko is very fond of her husband and would do or say anything to protect him. She’s an untrustworthy witness.”

  “Do you have any witness at all who can confirm that I said the things in the book?” Sano demanded.

  “Your Excellency, the only witness to his statements was Lady Wisteria, who’s been murdered. Her body was discovered the night before last.” The crime hadn’t escaped the notice of Hoshina and his spies. “How convenient for the sōsakan-sama that she can’t speak against him.” Hoshina flashed a sardonic glance at Sano.

  “The body may not even be Wisteria,” Sano said, “and it was found in a house belonging to Fujio the hokan. He’s the primary suspect in that murder, and also in Lord Mitsuyoshi’s. There are other suspects, including Wisteria’s chaperone, and maybe more we don’t know about because the investigation isn’t finished.”

  “The investigation has been controlled by the sōsakan-sama from the start,” Hoshina said with disdain. “The suspects he mentions are only people who can’t prove their innocence. He persecuted them to shield himself.”

  “You were the one who arrested Momoko,” Sano pointed out.

  “Because he tricked me into it,” Hoshina told the shogun. “He even defended Treasury Minister Nitta at his trial to make everyone believe he cares about justice. But his investigation is a farce, and his good character a disguise.

  “Lady Wisteria wrote in her pillow book that she wanted to force the sōsakan-sama to marry her. He gave her the weapon she needed when he insulted Your Excellency and threatened Lord Mitsuyoshi. It’s obvious that Wisteria tried to blackmail the sōsakan-sama, and he killed her so she could never tell anyone what he’d said. He’s a traitor who killed once to place his son in line for the succession, and again to cover up his crime.”

  “Indeed.” Tokugawa Tsunayoshi glowered at Sano.

  Sano felt the escalating pulse of panic along his nerves. Whatever he said in his own defense, Hoshina twisted to make him appear guiltier. Terrified by the nightmare that enmeshed him, furious at Hoshina, the elders, the shogun, and the injustice he faced, Sano resorted to guile, his only means of survival.

  “Your Excellency,” Sano said, “please allow me to remind everyone here that you are the ultimate authority. Your wisdom and powers of judgment surpass those of lesser humans. Police Commissioner Hoshina owes you an apology for trying to impose his feeble opinions on you.”

  Dismay wiped the self-satisfaction off Hoshina’s face. “He’s trying to flatter you into thinking better of him and worse of me, Your Excellency.”

  But the shogun, clearly eager for praise, frowned in resentment at Hoshina and waved a hand to silence him. “Go on,” Tokugawa Tsunayoshi ordered Sano.

  “You are a judicious ruler with a unique ability to distinguish right from wrong. Would you condemn a man just because a mere subordinate said you should?” Sano went on, though ashamed of manipulating his lord. “Would you let the real killer go free because Hoshina-san wants me blamed for Lord Mitsuyoshi’s murder?”

  While Hoshina stared in helpless outrage, indecision creased the shogun’s brow. “I, ahh, guess not,” the shogun said, looking to Sano for approval.

  “Of course you wouldn’t.” Heartened that he’d gained the upper hand, Sano said, “Your strong sense of honor requires more than just a book of dubious origin and Hoshina-san’s accusations before you decide whether a man you’ve trusted is a criminal. You require facts.”

  “Facts. Ahh, yes.” The shogun seized upon the word, as though delighted to see a complex situation reduced to one simple idea. Then his face clouded with confusion. “But how do I get them? What, ahh, shall I do?”

  “Since you ask my humble opinion,” Sano said, “I suggest that you order me to continue investigating the murders until I find the real culprit and prove my claim that I am innocent and have been framed by my enemies.”

  Enlightenment cleared the confusion from the shogun’s face; but before he could speak, Hoshina said, “Please excuse me, Your Excellency, but the sōsakan-sama mustn’t be allowed to search out an innocent person to blame for his crimes.” Hoshina’s tone was fervent, desperate. “If you agree to what he asks, you’ll be abetting the man who killed your cousin!”

  “In the interest of fairness, Police Commissioner Hoshina should be permitted to look for evidence that I’m guilty,” Sano said.

  Hoshina’s mouth opened in incredulity. The shogun considered. He looked toward Chamberlain Yanagisawa, whose shoulders moved in a slight shrug that disclaimed responsibility for the decision. The shogun then turned to the elders, but they sat still and impassive, like trees motionless until the prevailing wind blows.

  At last Tokugawa Tsunayoshi nodded. “That sounds, ahh, reasonable,” he said. The elders also nodded, their heads moving in unison.

  Sano experienced a deluge of relief that didn’t quench his rage at everyone in the room. He’d won a chance to save himself, but it was far less than he deserved.

  Indignant, Hoshina turned to Yanagisawa. The chamberlain looked straight at Sano. Was that respect, and a gleam of amusement in Yanagisawa’s eyes? Sano had learned from the chamberlain’s example how to manipulate the shogun. Did Yanagisawa enjoy watching Sano stoop to his own level?

  Sano suddenly understood why Yanagisawa didn’t care who had killed Lord Mitsuyoshi—or if the killer was caught—and chose to stay out of the argument. Yanagisawa had his mind on the future rather than the immediate controversy.

  Tokugawa Tsunayoshi flapped a hand at Sano and Hoshina. “I, ahh, order you both to go and do what Sōsakan Sano suggested. But remember this.” He focused his bloodshot eyes on Hoshina. “If you fail to prove that Sano-san is guilty, you will be punished for, ahh, slandering him.” The shogun’s warning gaze moved to Sano. “And unless you prove your innocence, you will be executed for killing my heir.”

  * * *

  26

  A large, noisy crowd filled the courtyard of Magistrate Aoki’s mansion and overflowed into the street. Hirata, accompanied by three detectives, had to push his way through the gate. People jostled him, craning their necks toward the mansion. Some were young men whose raffish clothing marked them as entertainers, artists, hustlers, or other denizens of the fashionable low life, but most were women.

  Samurai ladies, dressed in silk and guarded by troops, clustered around an iron vat, where a fire had been lit to heat the courtyard. In the outer reaches of the fire’s warmth, nuns with shaven heads knelt chanting prayers. Beyond them stood gaudily dressed wives and daughters of merchants. The largest contingent, huddled against the wall and buildings, looked to be servants, teahouse girls, and disreputable females. Some of the women wept; others whispered together, clearly distraught. Several doshin kept order among the crowd.

  “Who are all these people?” Hirata asked a doshin he knew.

  “Family, friends, and admirers of Fujio the hokan.”

  And probably his lovers, too, Hirata thought, all come to stand vigil during his trial.

  Upon walking into the Court of Justice, Hirata fou
nd old Magistrate Aoki and his secretaries already seated on the dais before an audience of officials. Fujio knelt on the shirasu. He wore a ragged hemp robe; chains shackled his hands and bare feet. As the door shut behind Hirata and his detectives, Fujio turned. His handsome face was drawn with misery, but he gave Hirata a brief, valiant smile.

  “Fujio, you are accused of the murder of the courtesan Lady Wisteria,” said Magistrate Aoki.

  Hirata wasn’t surprised; knowing how Aoki had rushed Treasury Minister Nitta to trial, he’d anticipated this. But as he and his men knelt at the side of the room, he noticed a woman on the shirasu near Fujio. She, too, wore a hemp robe and chains. Her drab hair hung in a braid down her thin back. Her elegant profile seemed carved by despair. It was Lady Wisteria’s yarite, Momoko. Shock jolted Hirata. Why was the chaperone here?

  “Momoko, you are accused of abetting Fujio in the murder.” Magistrate Aoki’s wrinkled bitter-melon face wore a prideful, smug look. “The pair of you shall therefore be tried together.”

  Hirata and his detectives exchanged glances of amazed consternation. The corpse in the cottage still hadn’t been definitely identified as Wisteria. The evidence against Fujio had weakened when his family and friends confirmed that he’d been far from the cottage during the crucial time period. And there was no evidence at all to implicate Momoko in the crime. What on earth was Magistrate Aoki doing?

  Then Hirata understood. Aoki had had second thoughts about convicting the treasury minister, and believed he might have erred. As long as other suspects existed, Aoki faced the chance that Sano would prove one of them guilty of Lord Mitsuyoshi’s murder and him guilty of subverting justice. Aoki wanted to eliminate Fujio and Momoko so that even if the shogun decided Nitta had been wrongly condemned, Magistrate Aoki would have already executed the only other possible culprits. He would be safe because Sano’s investigation would have no reason, to continue. And the second murder had given Aoki the opportunity to fulfill his corrupt aims at the expense of two people who might be innocent. Outrage filled Hirata.

  “In the interest of saving trouble, I shall dispense with the usual formalities and summarize the relevant facts of the case,” Magistrate Aoki said to the assembly.

  “Fujio had a love affair with Wisteria that continued in secret after he married a daughter of the man who owns the Great Miura brothel. Wisteria threatened to tell Fujio’s father-in-law about the affair unless Fujio got her out of Yoshiwara. But he didn’t have enough money to free her, and he didn’t want to lose his wife, his home, and his livelihood, as he would if his father-in-law learned he was an adulterer. Hence, Fujio decided to kill Wisteria to keep her quiet.”

  Hirata listened, incredulous. However likely a story this sounded, Magistrate Aoki offered no evidence whatsoever that it was true. And he apparently didn’t intend to present any witnesses. None existed, as far as Hirata knew.

  “Fujio told Wisteria he would help her escape,” Magistrate Aoki continued. “He hired a palanquin and bearers to wait outside Yoshiwara. He planned to sneak Wisteria out of the ageya, and the sentries at the gate would let her through if he bribed them. The palanquin would carry her to his secluded cottage, where he could murder her.”

  But of course, Magistrate Aoki had the authority to dispense with legal protocol if he chose, Hirata realized. Watching the defendants, he pitied them even while he acknowledged the possibility that they were guilty. Fujio sat quiet and composed, but Momoko looked shrunken like a wounded animal, and Hirata could hear her quick, rasping breaths. This was a mere case of two commoners accused of conspiring to kill another. Fujio and Momoko were powerless to resist, and the bakufu didn’t care what happened to them.

  From outdoors came shrill yells, and thumps against the wall of the building. Magistrate Aoki ignored the sounds. “However,” he intoned, “Fujio couldn’t manage his crime by himself. He had to perform at the ageya that night. He couldn’t risk getting caught helping his father-in-law’s courtesan run away because his secret would come out. And performing would give him an alibi for Wisteria’s disappearance. So he engaged an accomplice.”

  The magistrate gestured his wizened hand at Momoko. “This yarite was jealous of Wisteria and hated her. Momoko was also a friend of Fujio, and when he told her his plan, she was glad to help him. While he sang at the party, Momoko crept upstairs to the room where Wisteria was entertaining Lord Mitsuyoshi. The hour was late, and the lovers had been drinking. Momoko arrived to find them both asleep—or so she thought, until she saw that Mitsuyoshi was dead. Treasury Minister Nitta had sneaked into the room and stabbed him while Wisteria slept.”

  Momoko whimpered, shivering; her chains clinked.

  “She was horrified,” Magistrate Aoki said, “but she went through with Fujio’s plan. She awakened Wisteria and dressed the frightened courtesan in a hooded cloak she’d brought to disguise Wisteria. Then Momoko hurried Wisteria downstairs, out the back door, and through the streets to the gate.”

  Shrieks erupted outside the courtroom. The door shuddered under furious banging. On the far side of it, female voices pleaded; male voices threatened. The audience and guards turned in alarm.

  “What is that infernal racket?” Magistrate Aoki demanded.

  “It seems that the women from the crowd outside have gotten into the building,” one of his secretaries said, “and they want to see the accused man.”

  Fujio looked over his shoulder and gave Hirata a rueful but proud grin: Even when he was facing certain doom, he enjoyed his celebrity.

  “Well, they shan’t interrupt this trial.” Magistrate Aoki pitched his voice over the rising din: “Momoko bribed the gate sentries with money Fujio had given her. They let Wisteria out of the pleasure quarter, and she rode away in the palanquin. Then Momoko rushed back to the ageya. She told Fujio that Wisteria had escaped safely, but Lord Mitsuyoshi had been murdered. She was terrified that she would be blamed because her hairpin was the weapon.

  “Fujio cleverly told Momoko to go back upstairs, then come running down, screaming that Lord Mitsuyoshi was dead, as if she’d just discovered the body. Momoko was later arrested, but Fujio had evaded suspicion and was free to do as he pleased. He traveled to the cottage where Wisteria was hiding. He beat her to death and left her body to rot.”

  The story was plausible enough that Fujio and Momoko might really have contrived the murder as Magistrate Aoki claimed. Yet Hirata wouldn’t believe it without proof that Aoki hadn’t invented the whole tale.

  Now the magistrate gazed sternly at the accused pair. “Have you anything to say in your own defense?”

  Hirata lost all tolerance for this travesty of justice. Before Fujio or Momoko could answer, he rose and strode toward the dais. Everyone stared. “Honorable Magistrate, I’m stopping this trial until you show some real evidence that these people did what you say they did,” he said.

  Magistrate Aoki’s eyes glittered like dark, flinty pebbles as he gave Hirata a contemptuous look. “Your master tried to stop one of my trials. You won’t succeed where he failed. And unless you want a reputation for interfering with the law, you’d best keep quiet.”

  The door burst open. A horde of women stampeded into the courtroom. “Fujio-san! Fujio-san!” they screamed. Possessed by hysteria and ardor, samurai ladies, nuns, merchant women, and servant girls rushed toward the hokan. Fujio waved and beamed at them.

  “Stop!” Magistrate Aoki shouted at the women, then ordered the guards, “Get them out of here!”

  The guards pushed back the mob. Women moaned, struggled, tore their hair, and wept. They overwhelmed the guards and fell to their knees, occupying every empty space on the courtroom floor. Magistrate Aoki grimaced in disgust, then returned his attention to Fujio and Momoko.

  “Have you anything to say in your own defense?” he asked, clearly determined to ignore the interruption.

  “I didn’t do it!” Momoko’s desperate wail rose over the noise.

  Hirata, still standing near the dais, watched with horror and
pity as the yarite simpered at Magistrate Aoki. Fluttering her eyelids, she wriggled her body in a grotesque attempt to seduce, and cried, “Please believe that I’m innocent!”

  The magistrate’s flinty gaze was merciless. “I pronounce you guilty as an accomplice to murder. You are sentenced to death.”

  Guards bore the weeping, swooning Momoko through the crowd, out of the room. Magistrate Aoki addressed Fujio: “What do you say for yourself?”

  The room fell silent as the women waited for their idol to speak. Fujio said in a clear, ringing voice, “I confess.”

  An uproar of screaming and weeping burst from the women. Young girls beat their heads on the floor; the nuns chanted prayers. Magistrate Aoki yelled orders for the women to be quiet and the guards to remove them. Fujio struggled to his feet, weighted by the shackles. Slowly he turned toward the crowd. His noble, somber mien quieted the women. Tearful adoration shone on their faces as they beheld him.

  “Thank you, Hirata-san, for trying to help me,” Fujio said. “Thank you, honorable ladies, for your favor. But I know when I’m beaten, and I’d like to leave this life with grace. Therefore, I will sing my confession in a song I’ve written.”

  He looked to Magistrate Aoki, who frowned but nodded. Inhaling deeply, Fujio donned a look of intense concentration. He paused on the verge of the performance of his career, as suspense hushed the court. Then he sang in a stirring, melancholy voice:

  “Love is a garden of many flowers,

  Where the rose, peony, and iris unfurl their petals to the sun.

  My life was a garden of beautiful women,

  Which I wandered to my heart’s delight, sampling every blossom.

  But in the garden hides a flower of death,

  Whose sap is poison, and its thorns sharp as knives.

  Into my life came the Lady Wisteria

  Whose charms lured me to my downfall.