“The nurse took care of Tsuruhime, the shogun’s daughter,” the maid said. “Your husband sent her. He said you would know what to do.”
Now Reiko understood that Sano had sent a witness for her to question. Elated because she now had a chance to help save her family, she wrapped a towel around Akiko’s clean, wet head and rose.
“Don’t go!” Akiko wailed.
“I’ll be back soon.” Reiko pulled away from Akiko’s clinging hands. It seemed she was always leaving Akiko, and Akiko always felt abandoned. Reiko recalled the time when Masahiro had been kidnapped and Reiko and Sano had left home to rescue him. Akiko had been too young to remember; yet on some level she knew her mother had deserted her and she’d not forgotten. But there was nothing to do about it now. Reiko hurried to the reception room.
Near the alcove knelt a woman dressed in a brown cotton kimono printed with lavender bush clover. A large white scarf shrouded her hair and draped diagonally across her face, the end wound around her neck. Two of Sano’s troops stood against the wall inside the door. Reiko approached the woman, who tensed visibly.
“Welcome, Namiji-san,” Reiko said, kneeling opposite her guest.
The woman bowed, her courtesy automatic yet graceful. “Who are you?” Her husky voice, muffled by her scarf, blended seductiveness with coarseness. Reiko could see only her right eye. Its flower-petal shape and long lashes hinted at beauty.
“My name is Reiko. I’m Sano-san’s wife. I believe you met him at Lord Tsunanori’s estate?”
“… Yes. Why was I brought here?”
Reiko deduced that Sano hadn’t told the nurse that Reiko was supposed to question her about her mistress’s death. He must have wanted Reiko to take her by surprise. “To meet me,” Reiko said. “May I offer you some refreshments?”
Namiji skipped the customary polite response. “Am I under arrest?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll be going.” Namiji started to rise.
“Not until we’ve talked,” Reiko said. The troops moved in front of the door.
Namiji sank to her knees again. A sigh puffed out the smooth white fabric of her scarf. “Talked about what?”
“An important matter that would be better to discuss face-to-face.” In order to gauge the woman’s veracity, Reiko needed to see more of her. “Would you please remove your scarf?”
Namiji’s hand flew to the scarf, as though she feared Reiko would tear it off her head. She wore cotton gloves the color of bare skin. Her visible eye narrowed with cunning. “I had smallpox when I was seventeen. I haven’t been contagious since then, but who knows? If I take off my scarf, I might infect you-and your baby.”
Reiko felt a visceral stab of fear that brought on a contraction. Although it was unlikely that she could catch smallpox from somebody who’d had the disease years ago, she realized that this investigation posed threats to her even if she never left home. “All right, leave your scarf on,” she said, angry because she knew Namiji was taunting her. She tried to sympathize with this woman, who must have endured terrible suffering. “I’m sorry you had smallpox.”
“You’re just glad it wasn’t you.”
Reiko saw that sympathy wouldn’t induce cooperation from Namiji. She matched frankness with frankness. “You’re right. I am glad. Just as you must be glad that the smallpox killed your mistress but not you.”
Surprise at Reiko’s remark dilated the dark pupil in Namiji’s visible eye. “So you think I should be glad to be alive? Well, you don’t know what it’s like.”
“No, I don’t.” Curious, and wanting to form a rapport with Namiji after a bad start, Reiko said, “Would you like to tell me?”
Namiji laughed, a sound coarser than her voice. “Where shall I start? With the children who throw stones at me in the street? The women who whisper and giggle behind my back? The men who yell insults? Or the fact that no one will ever marry me?”
Reiko had seen how badly people treated those with physical or mental defects. It must be more hurtful than she’d thought. She felt guilty because she’d never tried to stop the tormenting. Nobody else did; it wasn’t the custom.
“Is that why I’m here?” Namiji asked. “For you to pick at my wounds? Did your husband send me here as a toy for you?”
“Certainly not.” Offended by the accusation, Reiko said, “He sent you here for me to ask you about Tsuruhime.”
“Ah.” Mockery glinted in the nurse’s eye. “He couldn’t do it himself because Lord Tsunanori was getting in the way.”
Reiko began to understand what must have happened at the estate. Lord Tsunanori had interfered with Sano’s investigation. The reason must be that he was afraid of it. Had he, not Yanagisawa, killed his wife?
Namiji regarded Reiko with amusement and curiosity. “I’ve heard about you-you help your husband solve crimes. Your husband must think Tsuruhime was murdered. He must want you to find out if I know anything about it.”
“Do you?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t tell you.” Namiji added primly, “Lord Tsunanori doesn’t like his people to talk about his business.”
“You’re not leaving here until you answer my questions,” Reiko said. “Did you like Tsuruhime?”
“Yes. She was friendly and kind and not demanding.” Namiji’s manner suddenly turned gentle and sweet. “I shall miss her very much.”
The act might have fooled Reiko if Namiji hadn’t already shown her true, unpleasant self. “You’re lying.”
“All right, I admit it,” Namiji snapped, unable or unwilling to keep up the act. “I didn’t like Tsuruhime. When she married Lord Tsunanori, she refused to let me wait on her, even though my family has served his for generations. She said my scars were so ugly, they made her sick.” Namiji’s gloved hands clenched. “She wouldn’t allow me in the women’s quarters, where I’d worked all my life. She wanted me thrown out so she wouldn’t have to see me.”
Lady Nobuko had described Tsuruhime as a sweet, harmless woman. Now Reiko glimpsed a different side of the shogun’s daughter. Maybe she’d been a victim murdered for her own cruelty, not just political gain. And maybe Yanagisawa wasn’t the culprit. Reiko’s heart sank as she realized that the nurse had had good reason to want Tsuruhime dead and her first inquiry was leading her in the wrong direction.
“But Lord Tsunanori wouldn’t let her,” Namiji said smugly. “I had to work in the kitchen, and live in the servants’ quarters, and stay out of her sight, but he kept me on.”
“Why did he?” Reiko was surprised that Lord Tsunanori would side with a servant instead of his wife.
“There’s always a shortage of trustworthy servants, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“If Tsuruhime wouldn’t let you near her, then how did you come to be her nurse?”
“Because she got smallpox. I was the only person at the estate who could go near her without catching it.” Namiji laughed her coarse laugh. “She ended up with the same disease that made me so disgusting to her. And every time she looked up at me sitting by her bed, she saw what she would look like if she survived. Which she didn’t. Isn’t that funny?”
Reiko thought it more suspicious than coincidental. “Do you know of anyone who had smallpox shortly before Tsuruhime took ill?”
“No.”
“Did you see a stained sheet among Tsuruhime’s things?”
“Stained with what?”
“Pus and blood, from someone else’s smallpox sores.”
“Why? Was there one?”
Reiko analyzed Namiji’s puzzled, innocent manner. She couldn’t tell if it was genuine. Although Namiji had talked freely to her own detriment, she might be better at concealing knowledge than she seemed. “You tell me.”
“I don’t know anything to tell you. Is that how she got smallpox, from someone else’s infected sheet?”
“Suppose it is,” Reiko said. “You hated her. You’re obviously pleased by her death. Did you put the sheet in with her things?”
“I
couldn’t have.” Namiji spoke as if the accusation were stupid as well as unjust. “I told you, Tsuruhime didn’t allow me in her quarters until she took ill and she didn’t have a choice.”
“Then who could have done it? Lord Tsunanori?”
“Not him,” Namiji declared.
“Then why did he interfere with my husband’s inquiries?”
Namiji ignored the question. “If I tell you who might have done it, will you let me go?”
Reiko was taken aback to learn that while she’d been trying to coax Namiji into incriminating herself, the nurse had been hiding a card with which to bargain for her freedom-the identity of a new suspect. Namiji had figured out that this was a murder investigation when Sano had started asking questions at Lord Tsunanori’s estate. But maybe she’d known beforehand that Tsuruhime had been murdered, and she’d squirreled away a tidbit of information in case she fell under suspicion and needed to protect herself.
“Who might have done it?” Reiko asked.
“Will you let me go after I tell you?”
“How do I know whether this person really could have infected Tsuruhime or if you’re going to feed me a lie to divert my suspicion from you?”
Namiji chuckled. “You don’t.”
Although she distrusted Namiji and was vexed by her insolence, Reiko needed any clue she could get. “All right. But you’d better convince me that your information is good. If I think you’re just pointing the finger at someone you don’t like, then I’ll tell my husband that I think you killed Tsuruhime. He’ll send you to trial for murder.”
Everyone knew that virtually all trials ended with guilty verdicts and the punishment for murder was death by decapitation.
“Oh, it’s good,” Namiji said confidently. “Eight days before Tsuruhime took ill, she had a visitor. I saw him. It was the shogun’s new son.”
Surprise jolted Reiko. The child inside her rolled. This was the first clue that connected Yoshisato-and Yanagisawa-with Tsuruhime. Hiding her excitement, Reiko said, “Go on.”
“Yoshisato came to the estate. Tsuruhime received him in her chambers. She didn’t ordinarily let men in there, but he was her half brother. He brought her a fancy chest full of presents. They were together for almost an hour. Alone.” Namiji put a gloved finger to her temple, as if an idea had just occurred to her. “I wonder if there was a stained sheet inside that chest. And if he sneaked it in with her things while she wasn’t looking.”
Reiko couldn’t wait to tell Sano what she’d heard. But he would want to check Namiji’s story. “Can anyone vouch for what you’ve just told me?”
“Tsuruhime’s servants and ladies-in-waiting. They saw him, too. Can I go now?”
Honor-bound to keep her part of the bargain, Reiko told the guards, “Take her back to Lord Tsunanori’s estate.”
“In case you’re thinking of bringing me back for another chat-” Namiji leaned close to Reiko, whipped her scarf away from her mouth, and coughed in Reiko’s face.
Reiko cried out in horror as she recoiled from Namiji’s moist, sour breath. Terrified despite knowing that Namiji wasn’t contagious, Reiko scrubbed her face with her sleeve.
Namiji burst into malicious laughter. “That will teach you to stay away from me!”
The guards seized her and dragged her away from Reiko. Reiko heard her laughing all the way down the corridor.
10
Masahiro hurried through Edo Castle, on his way to help his father with the most important investigation of their lives. He wore a leather shoulder pouch and a pole attached to his back that flew a banner printed with the Tokugawa triple-hollyhock-leaf crest-his page’s uniform. An official stopped him, said, “Take this message to the north army command post,” and pushed a scroll container into his hands.
Unable to refuse because his position in the regime was already shaky, Masahiro delivered the scroll. Afterward, he met two fellow pages. They blocked his way down the passage.
“What have we here?” said one of them, a surly, thickset boy named Ukyo.
“It’s the great Masahiro, who used to be head of the shogun’s private chambers,” said Gizaemon, the other boy. His little black eyes glinted with mean pleasure in a face like a rat’s. “But he got kicked out of the palace today.”
These boys and others had resented him because the shogun had chosen Masahiro to serve as head of his chambers and bypassed them. Masahiro stood his ground even though Ukyo and Gizaemon were two years older, taller, and stronger than he. “Get out of my way.”
“‘Get out of my way,’” Ukyo mocked him in a girlish falsetto.
Gizaemon snickered. “Say ‘please.’”
Masahiro knew he could beat them in a sword fight. He’d done so at martial arts practice, another reason they were tickled by his downfall. But drawing a weapon inside Edo Castle was against the law, punishable by death.
“‘Please,’” Masahiro said through gritted teeth.
The two boys stood aside. As he passed them, they grabbed him. They wrestled him onto the ground, seized his hair, and banged his face against the paving stones. Then they released him and walked away, laughing.
Masahiro stood up. He wiped his face with his hand, which came away bloody from a cut on his nose. He burned with shame and anger. Remembering how he’d been demoted in front of the assembly at the palace, he blinked back tears. That, and seeing his father brought down by Yanagisawa, had been the worst experience of his life. And this attack was only a taste of trouble to come, Masahiro knew. Yanagisawa would never leave his family in peace. Masahiro held his head high while he strode through the castle, avoiding the gazes of the people he passed. As he exited the castle gate, he swore to solve the murder of the shogun’s daughter and prove Yanagisawa was guilty.
By the time he reached the crowded, bustling daimyo district, the temple bells began tolling noon. The sun shone with a force that promised a hot summer. Laborers repairing the estates had stripped down to their loincloths. Their naked legs and torsos gleamed with sweat. Sawdust choked the air. Masahiro loitered near Lord Tsunanori’s gate and pondered what to do.
The sentries wouldn’t just let him walk in and start asking people, “Did you see Yanagisawa kill the shogun’s daughter?” Masahiro reached in his bag, took out a scroll container, and approached the sentries. “I have a message for Lord Tsunanori, from the shogun.”
“Thanks, I’ll give it to him,” one of the men said.
“My instructions were to put it into his hands myself,” Masahiro lied.
“I’ll see that he gets it.” The man snatched the scroll from Masahiro.
Masahiro wondered what Lord Tsunanori would think when he opened the empty container. He walked around the estate, peering up at the surrounding barracks, until he reached the back gate. It was open and unguarded. A group of carpenters sauntered in, carrying boards over their shoulders. Masahiro followed.
Although repairs had been finished on the lord’s mansion and the parts of the estate visible from the outside, new stables and servants’ quarters were still under construction, amid hammering and sawing. Smoke billowed from hearths under a huge tent where cooks prepared food for the daimyo’s entourage. Oxcarts, workbenches, piles of lumber and stones, and trash heaps took up much of the grounds. Masahiro saw shaved crowns and topknots on many workers. There weren’t enough peasants to rebuild Edo. Samurai who normally spent their time loafing now had to work for their stipends. As Masahiro looked around, wondering where to start his inquiries, he heard shouts, then a loud shattering noise.
Four samurai stood atop a building. They’d been affixing ceramic tiles on the roof. Below them a box lay on the ground amid broken tiles. Two of the samurai cursed angrily. A third yelled, “Look what you did, you clumsy fool! It’s a good thing nobody was standing down there. Go pick those tiles up!”
The fourth man, who’d knocked the box off the roof, climbed down a ladder. He was younger than the others, in his early twenties. While they had strong, tough muscles and
faces, he had a slender build and handsome, sensitive features.
“Save the unbroken ones,” a man on the roof ordered. “There’s a shortage of tiles.”
Masahiro hurried over to help. “Thank you,” the young man muttered as he and Masahiro sorted good tiles into the box and threw fragments onto a trash heap.
The other men sat on the roof and watched. Disgruntled because they were forced to do menial labor, they took out their anger on their comrade, talking about him as if he weren’t there. “I never saw anybody so careless.” “He doesn’t pay attention to what he’s doing.” The young man’s sensitive mouth tightened as he sorted tiles. “His head has been in the clouds.” “Do you think it’s because of the mistress?” The men chuckled.
Masahiro’s attention perked up. The mistress-that must mean Lord Tsunanori’s wife, Tsuruhime. He studied the man he was helping. Could he have something to do with the shogun’s daughter and her murder?
The young man flung the last good tile into the box. His cheeks were bright red. With quick, angry movements he lifted the box onto a wooden platform and cranked a pulley. The men on the roof grasped the box and guided it onto the roof. They continued their conversation.
“All those afternoons he spent alone with her in her room before she got sick.” “Did he think the master wouldn’t find out?” “Now that she’s dead, he’s really lost his wits.”
“Shut up!” the young man burst out, glaring up at his comrades. “Just shut the hell up!”
They guffawed. One said, “Jinnosuke is in a bad mood.” Another said, “His little balls must be aching because he’s not getting any pussy!”
Masahiro had overheard enough conversation at Edo Castle to understand that these men were talking about sex. Their remarks implied that the young man had had an affair with Tsuruhime. Masahiro was excited because it might have a bearing on her murder.
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