The Snow Empress

by Laura Joh Rowland

  Urahenka muttered what sounded like a curse. Chieftain Awetok merely drew another arrow from his quiver. Amazed, Hirata said, “I didn’t even know the deer was there. If it had been a man, I would have sensed his presence.” His mystic martial arts training had taught him to detect the energy that people gave off. Nobody could sneak up on him.

  Awetok chuckled. “You samurai focus too much on the world of humans. You ignore the world of nature, which is just as important. Until you learn to pay attention to what nature has to show you and tell you, you are as good as blind and deaf and crippled.”

  A sense of revelation struck Hirata. Was nature the dimension missing from his awareness? Did it hold the key to enlightenment? The idea seemed too simple, yet alluring. Was oneness with nature and the entirety of the cosmos what he’d come to Ainu Mosir to learn from the chieftain?

  As the hunt resumed, Hirata strayed away from the other men. He inhaled and exhaled deep, slow breaths in the meditation technique that he’d learned from Ozuno. Fresh, wintry air flowed through every fiber of him, stimulating yet calming. He let his thoughts drift up into the gray sky. The cold whiteness of the landscape and the sting of snowflakes on his face overwhelmed his senses, liberated his spirit. A trance possessed him.

  His spirit inhabited the body trudging through the woods yet floated in a dimension free of himself. He felt his awareness expand as though his mind’s energy had burst out of his skull that confined it. He had a terrifying, awesome perception of the world as much vaster, richer, and more complex than he’d ever dreamed. Around him and through him flowed the spirit of Ainu Mosir. Her heartbeat drummed powerfully in rhythm with his own. The forest became animated with forces he hadn’t noticed before—the life dormant in the leafless trees and in the animals hibernating in burrows, the energy bound up in rocks, earth, and ice. Nature clamored at Hirata in voices beyond the range of normal hearing, in languages he didn’t know. Arms spread, face lifted to the sky, he grasped for comprehension.

  A human presence suddenly intruded upon his awareness. His trance shattered. The voices were silenced. Nature’s dimension withdrew from Hirata as fast as a hermit crab scuttling into its shell. His spirit snapped back into the iron cage of his body. A premonition of danger blared through Hirata’s mind. He whirled in the direction from which it came.

  Urahenka stood amid the trees some ten paces away. He held his bow vertical, string pulled back, sighting along the arrow aimed at Hirata. As their gazes met, Urahenka grinned. Hirata was looking death straight in the face.

  Triumphant shouts startled them both. The Rat came thrashing through the trees. “Hey!” he yelled. “The chieftain’s shot a deer!”

  Urahenka quickly lowered his bow and arrow.

  “It’s a big one,” the Rat said happily. “We can go home now, thank heaven.” He looked from Hirata to Urahenka and frowned. “What’s going on?”

  Urahenka gestured at Hirata and spoke. Hirata didn’t need to know Ainu language to understand that the man was saying, “He got lost. I found him.”

  Hirata stared at Urahenka as he walked past him. Urahenka met his eyes, innocently bland. Had he intended to warn Hirata off investigating him and the chieftain? Or had he really meant to kill Hirata—then claim it was an accident—because he was guilty of murder and eager to prevent Hirata from finding out?

  Chapter Seventeen

  Reiko sank to her knees in her chamber, exhausted from her visit with Lady Matsumae.

  In the past she’d held her own against bigger, tougher adversaries who’d threatened and attacked her, but this encounter had battered her emotions. She’d had her heart rubbed in her worst fears about her son. Although she’d promised to help Sano with the murder investigation, and she knew that solving the crime was their best hope of freeing themselves and Masahiro, she didn’t think she could bear to go on with it.

  She looked at her hands: They were shaking. Even though the room was freezing cold, her clothes were damp with sweat. A headache pounded in her temples, and nerves twisted her stomach into a tight, nauseous coil.

  Lilac added coal to the braziers. “It’ll be warm soon.”

  “Thank you,” Reiko murmured. Sick and dizzy, she doubled over to keep from fainting.

  “What’s the matter?” Lilac asked. “Don’t you feel good? I’ll get you something.” She hurried from the room and returned with a ceramic jar and cup. Kneeling, she poured amber-colored liquid. “Here. Drink this.”

  Reiko took the cup and sniffed. Alcoholic fumes stung her nostrils. “What is it?”

  “Native wine. Made from millet and rice. It’ll make you feel better.”

  It could hardly make her feel any worse. Reiko drank it down. The liquor was tart and strong. It burned her throat, but her nausea abated, and a calming, sedative relief crept through her. “Thank you.”

  Lilac beamed, happy to be of service. As she took the cup from Reiko, their fingers touched. “Your hands are like ice. Here, let’s warm them up.” She pulled a brazier close to Reiko.

  “You’re very kind,” Reiko said, gratefully holding her hands over the heat.

  Yet she still didn’t care much for Lilac. She felt the pressure of an ulterior motive behind the girl’s kindness. But if the girl wanted to be useful, Reiko would give her the opportunity.

  “What do you have to tell me that you couldn’t when we were with Lady Matsumae?” Reiko asked.

  Lilac’s eyes sparkled with eagerness, but she hesitated. “I don’t know if I should say.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ll get in trouble if I talk about Lady Matsumae.”

  That was an understandable fear for a servant at the mercy of her mistress, but Reiko suspected a less admirable reason behind Lilac’s sudden reticence. “In that case, I’d like to be by myself,” she said, not in the mood for games. “You’re dismissed.”

  As Lilac rose, she seemed torn between her need to keep quiet about what she knew and her wish to stay with Reiko. She said slowly, “Lady Matsumae wasn’t jealous about her husband. That’s not why she hated Tekare.”

  Reiko motioned Lilac to sit. “Why did she?”

  Lilac obeyed, although Reiko could see her calculating how to make the most of the least that she could tell. “It was what happened to her daughter.”

  The last thing Reiko wanted was to hear another story about Lady Matsumae’s dead child, but it might illuminate a possible motive for the murder. “What happened?”

  “When Nobuko got sick, the Japanese doctors couldn’t cure her. Lady Matsumae was desperate. Tekare was a shamaness. She was supposed to be able to cure diseases with magic. Lord Matsumae said to let her try to cure Nobuko. Even though Lady Matsumae doesn’t like the natives, she agreed. So Tekare performed a spell.”

  Lilac paused. Thoughts creased her brow. Reiko prompted, “What kind of spell?”

  “A spell to drive off the evil spirit that was causing the sickness. Tekare burned a branch of spruce. She beat on a drum and sang prayers. She wrapped Nobuko with bulrush cords. Then she cut them off with a knife. She said that would cut the spirit’s power, so it couldn’t hurt Nobuko anymore. And she gave Nobuko a potion to drink, to make her strong again.”

  “But she didn’t get better,” Reiko finished.

  “She died the very next day. Tekare said it was because the spirit had too strong a hold on Nobuko. Lord Matsumae believed her. But Lady Matsumae didn’t. She said Tekare had put poison in the potion. She accused Tekare of murdering Nobuko.”

  Surprise jarred Reiko. No wonder Lady Matsumae had laughed at the suggestion that she’d killed Tekare because the native woman had stolen her husband’s affections. It was so far off the mark—if Lilac was telling the truth.

  “Ask the other servants,” Lilac said, noticing Reiko’s distrust. “They’ll tell you that’s what happened.”

  “But why would Tekare have killed Nobuko?” Reiko asked.

  “You’ve seen how Lady Matsumae treats the Ezo women. Maybe Tekare wanted to get ev
en with her.”

  “Badly enough to poison the child?” Incredulity filled Reiko.

  “Tekare wasn’t a nice person,” Lilac said. “She didn’t put up with Lady Matsumae or anybody else being mean to her. She could have done it.”

  “But to kill Lord Matsumae’s daughter?” Reiko couldn’t believe Tekare had dared kill the child of a man who was not only her lover but the ruler of her land.

  Then she remembered another woman who’d tried to murder a child of another powerful man because of her cruel, sick hatred for the child’s mother. A shiver rippled through Reiko, as it always did when she thought of Lady Yanagisawa, now exiled to Hachijo Island with her husband, the former chamberlain. She felt the same rage as on the day that Lady Yanagisawa had almost contrived Masahiro’s death. Lady Matsumae’s belief that Tekare had poisoned her daughter gave her a far better cause for murder than did sexual jealousy.

  “Lord Matsumae thought Nobuko was going to die anyway,” Lilac said. “Tekare knew he wouldn’t have blamed her. And he didn’t. He thought she could do no wrong.”

  Reiko shook her head, deploring the idea that Tekare had been a woman capable of such an atrocity, that Sano and Reiko were trying to get justice for a victim who hardly deserved it. “What was in that potion?”

  “Native plants, I guess. Ezo shamanesses keep that kind of thing secret.”

  But even if Lady Matsumae was the murderer, how could Reiko prove it? She contemplated Lilac. “You spend a lot of time with Lady Matsumae, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” the girl said. “She works me practically to death.”

  “Has she said anything to indicate that she killed Tekare?”

  “Not that I heard. She’s careful about talking in front of the servants.”

  But Reiko suspected that Lilac was adept at spying. “Did you see her do anything that looked suspicious?”

  “No.”

  “On the day that Tekare died, did Lady Matsumae leave the castle?” Reiko said. To set the trap, she would have had to go to the path before nightfall.

  “I don’t know. But I wasn’t with her that whole day. I remember she sent me out shopping in town.”

  Perhaps to rid herself of a nosy witness, Reiko thought. Or perhaps to cover for someone who’d set the trap for her. “What about her ladies-in-waiting? Did they go out?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Frustration slid Reiko’s spirits downward. Even though she’d discovered a new, strong possible motive for the murder, she was back where she’d been when she’d left Lady Matsumae—with four suspects and no evidence. Even though somebody in the castle might have seen one of them sneaking outside, spring-bow in hand, how could Reiko search for a witness while she had such limited freedom?

  She said in desperation, “Lilac, do you know anything else?”

  The girl’s gaze slithered away from Reiko.

  “What is it?”

  Thoughts flitted across Lilac’s face. She toyed with a patch on her coat. The threads were coming loose.

  “Tell me!” Reiko ordered, bursting with impatience.

  “Suppose I do.” Lilac put one word slowly after another, as if giving herself time to think. She watched Reiko from the corners of her eyes. “If I tell you, what will you do for me?”

  Here it was, the real reason Lilac had at first balked at revealing the story about Lady Matsumae: She wanted to barter her knowledge for personal gain. She didn’t want to throw it away for the mere sake of helping Reiko. Although Reiko disapproved of the girl’s attempt at extortion, she was in no position to resist.

  “I’ll do anything you ask,” she said. “Just name it.”

  A smile twitched Lilac’s mouth as she sensed her fondest wishes within reach. “I want to get out of Ezogashima. I want to go to Edo, to live in the big city. Maybe you need a maid? When you go home, you’ll take me with you?”

  Under any other circumstances, Reiko wouldn’t hire such a shifty character as Lilac, but now she said, “Yes, if that’s what you want.”

  Lilac turned to her, eyes agleam. “It would be better if I didn’t have to work. Maybe I could be your companion instead?”

  At the girl’s mercy, Reiko said, “All right.”

  “Someday I’d like to marry a rich samurai. Could you find a husband for me?”

  The nerve of her! Reiko’s jaw dropped.

  Obviously sensing she’d overstepped herself, Lilac said, “Yesterday I told you I’d look around for your son. What if I know something about him, too?”

  “Do you?” Reiko gasped with hope even as she hated Lilac for playing on her vulnerability.

  “I might,” Lilac said, crafty and enjoying her power over Reiko. “But if you want me to tell you what, you’ll have to make it worth my while.”

  “All right. Yes!” If the girl helped reunite her with Masahiro as well as solve the murder, Reiko would marry Lilac to the shogun himself. “Tell me!”

  She saw how eager Lilac was to grab the prize. The girl’s hands curled into little grasping claws. Dimples bubbled in her cheeks. But her gaze measured Reiko. “How do I know that if I tell you, you’ll keep your end of our bargain?”

  “You can trust me,” Reiko assured her.

  Just then, the door opened and two guards peered in, checking on Reiko. Lilac started guiltily. They both waited in taut silence until the guards shut the door and left.

  “I can’t talk now,” Lilac whispered. “Not here.”

  “Then where? When?” Reiko pleaded in an agony of frustration.

  “Tomorrow,” Lilac said.

  “But—”

  Before Reiko could protest any further, Lilac jumped up, bowed hastily, and ran from the room.

  Chapter Eighteeen

  Escorted by Gizaemon and a squadron of troops, Sano and Detective Fukida inspected offices, a guard room, and reception chambers that contained nothing of interest. At last they arrived in Lord Matsumae’s private quarters. Gizaemon leaned in the doorway while Sano and Marume looked around the bedchamber.

  The lacquer tables, screen, iron chests, and silk cushions were aligned parallel to the walls. The alcove held a jade vase that contained a branch of scarlet berries and a scroll with calligraphy so stylized that Sano couldn’t read it. The décor could have been lifted from any fashionable samurai house in Edo. The servants had neatened the room during Lord Matsumae’s absence, but Sano could still smell his stale body odor, which had soaked into the mats on the floor and walls.

  “What are you looking for?” Gizaemon asked.

  “I’ll know when I find it,” Sano replied.

  Gizaemon snorted and chewed a sassafras toothpick. “This shouldn’t take long.”

  Fukida opened chests that held dishware for serving tea and sake, playing cards, a chessboard and pieces. Sano went to the cabinet. Inside he found clothes, shaving equipment, a toiletry kit with mirror, brush, and comb, and pairs of shoes. The compartments for bedding were empty; it had probably been taken away for washing. Not only did Sano not know exactly what he was looking for that might implicate Lord Matsumae in the murder, he hadn’t much hope that he would find it here.

  “Excuse me, Gizaemon-san, may I speak with you?”

  A samurai official appeared at the door. While Gizaemon turned to talk to him, Sano continued searching the cabinet. On the floor stood a wooden trunk, stained black and inlaid with ivory designs that resembled the spiral patterns Sano had seen on Ezo clothing. It looked out of place among Lord Matsumae’s other, Japanese-style possessions.

  “There’s disease in the castle,” the official said.

  “What kind?” Gizaemon sounded concerned.

  “Fever, chills. Aching head and muscles. Weakness.”

  Sano knelt and opened the trunk’s clasp, which was fashioned from an iron loop and the fang of a wild animal. He lifted the lid. Inside the trunk he found a ceramic jug sealed with a cork; cloth drawstring pouches; a silver tobacco pipe; a writing set with brush, ink-stone, and water jar; strips of willow
wood bound together with a leather lace; a knife with a carved wooden hilt and sheath, such as the Ezo men carried; and iron fishhooks strung on cords. The ends were tipped with what looked like dried blood.

  “Sounds like northern plague. How many have taken ill?”

  “Eight last night, seven this morning. All soldiers, except for two servants who work in the barracks. It broke out there.”

  Sano picked up the jug and shook it. Liquid sloshed inside. He removed the cork and sniffed bittersweet, alcoholic fumes. He resealed the jug and opened the pouches. They contained dried leaves, roots, and seeds. On the bottom of the trunk, under the other items, lay two books—one large and square, the other a small, slim rectangle—bound in coarse taupe fabric and tied with frayed reeds.

  “Has the physician been called?” Gizaemon asked.

  “Yes. He’s with the patients now.”

  Sano barely heard the conversation. His heart pounded with excitement because he sensed he’d made an important discovery. He opened the larger book and turned the pages. They were paintings done in ink, crudely executed, featuring a samurai engaged in sex with a tattooed Ezo woman. They coupled in contorted positions that exposed their naked genitalia. Each was stamped with Lord Matsumae’s signature seal. He’d chronicled his intimate relations with Tekare in a “spring book,” a collection of erotic art.

  The pages of the smaller book were covered with calligraphy that was precise and elegant in the beginning, then deteriorated into scrawls. Flipping through them, Sano noticed one set of characters repeated over and over. They were syllables in phonetic writing. Tekare. This book appeared to be Lord Matsumae’s diary, a series of entries without dates, separated by lines, about his mistress.

  “Have you quarantined the sick men?” Gizaemon asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, when the physician is done with them, have him examine everybody else in the castle.”

  “Right away.”

  Instinct warned Sano not to let Gizaemon know what he’d found. He tucked the diary under his coat, closed the trunk, and shoved it back in the cabinet. He stood and turned just as Gizaemon entered the room and said, “Well? Find anything interesting?”