The Concubine's Tattoo

by Laura Joh Rowland

  Sano broke the silence. “May I come in?”

  Though Reiko would have defied an order, she couldn’t refuse the plea in his voice. She let Sano enter, then closed the door. With the household asleep, they were more alone together than they’d ever been before. Sano’s new vulnerability magnified his physical presence; the barrier of anger was gone. Now Reiko was keenly aware of them as man and woman, not opposing arguments. A trembling began inside her. Something was going to happen, but perhaps none of the events she’d imagined.

  To hide her nervousness, she blurted, “I wasn’t expecting you.” At the same time, Sano said, “I’m sorry to disturb you so late.” After an awkward pause, Sano spoke again. “I got your message, and I wanted to thank you. You saved me from making a bad mistake.”

  He explained what had happened with Lady Keisho-in. Reiko experienced horror at how close they’d come to ruin, then relief at the outcome. But the question of their marriage remained. They couldn’t continue as they’d begun; a perpetual war of wills would destroy them both. Though the attraction pulled Reiko toward Sano ever more strongly, she wasn’t ready to surrender her dreams, especially after proving her worth. When he finished speaking, she averted her face, loath to betray her conflicting desires.

  “Reiko-san.” To her astonishment, Sano knelt at her feet. “I’ve misjudged your skill, and I beg you to accept my apology. If I were half as clever a detective as you, I might have discovered Chamberlain Yanagisawa’s plot in time to avoid a lot of trouble.” A self-deprecating smile quirked his mouth. “But I was stupid. And blind. And stubborn.” The words came out haltingly, as if they caused him pain. “I should have listened to you in the beginning, and not been so quick to refuse your help.”

  Reiko stared down at him in wonder. A samurai abasing himself to a woman and admitting he’d been wrong? As much as she’d admired his bravery and his dedication to principles, Reiko now admired Sano’s humility. She’d learned that it took more strength of character to acknowledge one’s faults than to fight sword battles. The ice of her resistance toward Sano began to thaw.

  “It’s hard for me to trust people,” Sano went on. “I always try to do everything myself—partly because I don’t want to harm anyone else, but partly because I think I can do better than they can.” Color rose in his cheeks, and he spoke faster, as though hurrying to finish before he lost courage. “You showed me the self-deluding fool that I am. You were right not to give up investigating the murder and leave your fate in my hands. I don’t blame you if you’d rather go home to your father than live with me. If you want a divorce, I’ll agree to it.

  “But if you’ll give me time to improve my character, a chance to learn how to be the kind of husband you deserve—” He drew a deep breath and blew it out. “What I’m trying to say is, I want you to stay. Because I’m in love with you, Reiko.” His eyes shone with ardor. Then he looked away. “And I…I need you.”

  Behind the quiet words Reiko could almost hear the echo of a fortress crumbling. Now Sano faced her again, the hesitancy gone; his voice rang clear and true. “I need you, not only as a wife, or a mother for my children, or for my pleasure, but as the woman you are. A partner in my work. A comrade in honor.”

  Reiko struggled to absorb everything he’d said. Sano not only returned her love, but he was offering her a marriage on her terms! She could have him, without losing herself. Gladness swelled within her. Savoring the triumph of the moment, she stood perfectly still, not daring even to breathe. But Sano was waiting for her decision, anxiously trying to read her expression. Emotion choked Reiko’s throat; words would not come, so she answered in the only way possible. She held out her hand to Sano.

  Joy lit his face as his warm, strong fingers grasped and covered hers. Rising, he gazed down into her eyes. An eternity passed in wordless mutual discovery, the exchange of a million unspoken thoughts. In silence Reiko conveyed her love to Sano; he promised her freedom as well as protection. Between them shimmered a vision of the future, hazy but radiant. Then a troubled sigh gusted from Sano.

  “This isn’t going to be easy,” he said. “We’ll both have to change. It will take time—and patience. But I’m willing to try, if you are.”

  “I am,” Reiko whispered.

  Even as she gave her pledge, fear quaked under her happiness. Sano’s maleness intimidated her. She felt his need in the grip of his hand around hers, the quickening of his breath. Her own vulnerability appalled her.

  Now Sano drew her nearer, cupping her face in his hand. She realized that this was for her the first test of their marriage. They couldn’t always be like two soldiers marching side by side into battle. The power balance between them would shift back and forth, one prevailing while the other yielded. In the arena of carnal love, he had the advantages of age, strength, and experience. It was her turn to submit to him first. Yet the force of Reiko’s response to Sano weakened her instinctive resistance. Desire was a voracious hunger. Ardently she pressed herself against him.

  His arms came around her. She saw lust darken his features, felt the insistent rhythm of his heart and the frightening hardness at his groin. Terror leapt inside Reiko. But Sano caressed her hair, her neck, her shoulders with extreme gentleness: He was restraining himself because he understood her fear. Emboldened, Reiko touched the bare skin at the neckline of his kimono. His hands circled her waist. Gazes locked, they moved toward the futon, and Reiko couldn’t tell whether Sano was leading the way, or she.

  They sank onto the futon, and at Sano’s touch, Reiko’s hair tumbled free of its combs. Willingly she let him untie her sash, but when he tried to slip off the layered kimonos, she recoiled. No man had ever seen her naked, and she feared his scrutiny, especially if she must be exposed while he remained clothed.

  Sano withdrew at once. “I’m sorry.” As if reading her thoughts, he untied his own sash. He shrugged off his brown kimono and white under-robe. Reiko stared in amazement.

  Scars seamed the tanned skin on the lean, sculpted muscles of his arms and chest, the flat planes of his stomach. The skin on his calves was pink and flaky, healing from burns. Naked except for his loincloth, Sano looked like a survivor of war and fire. A tender pain arced through Reiko. She touched a large, dark scab just below the outer right edge of Sano’s collarbone.

  “What happened to you?” she asked.

  With a rueful smile, he said, “An arrow wound, while I was in Nagasaki.”

  “And the burns?”

  “The man who shot a Dutch merchant tried to stop the murder investigation by setting my house on fire.”

  Reiko touched a long line of puckered flesh on his upper left arm. The wound had been serious. “What about this?”

  “A souvenir from the Bundori Killer.”

  “And these?” Reiko traced other scars on her husband’s left shoulder and right forearm.

  “Sword fights with a traitor who attacked the shogun, and an assassin who tried to kill me.”

  Without his saying so, Reiko realized that Sano had defeated both men. His victories impressed her, as did his courage to risk his life in the line of duty.

  Unexpectedly, Sano looked mortified, rather than proud of his deeds. “I’m sorry that the sight of me disgusts you.”

  “No! It doesn’t at all!” Reiko hastened to assure him. The ugly scars were symbols of everything she valued in Sano, yet she knew that words wouldn’t convince him. Forgetting her own shyness, she removed her garments, baring her slender figure and small, pointed breasts. She took Sano’s hands and placed them on her waist.

  Relief, gratitude, and desire mingled in his deep sigh, his somber smile. “You are beautiful,” he said.

  Pride gave Reiko daring. She tugged at Sano’s loincloth. The band of white cotton defied her clumsy efforts, and he helped her. Then the last fold came away, and she gazed in fascination at her first sight of an aroused man. His size at once alarmed and profoundly stirred her. When she touched his organ, it pulsed in her hand, a shaft of rigid muscle ben
eath smooth, sensitive skin. She heard him moan. Then his embrace drew her down onto the futon.

  The warmth of intimate contact startled Reiko, as did the difference between her body and Sano’s. He was hard where she was soft, all large bones and steel sinews to her delicacy. Then he began fondling her breasts, teasing her nipples, stroking her thighs. Lifted to new heights of sensation, Reiko returned touch for touch; the strangeness disappeared as their harsh breaths mingled and pleasure made them equals. Sano’s mouth on her throat, his manhood pressing against her elicited a moan from Reiko. Between her legs, his fingers caressed. Her inner flesh swelled and moistened. When he mounted her, she was more than ready.

  Sano lowered his weight upon her slowly, so as not to crush her. He wet himself with saliva to ease their union. Gently he thrust against Reiko’s womanhood. Despite his care, she felt a sharp pain as he entered. She stiffened, gasping.

  “I’m sorry,” Sano said quickly.

  Yet through the pain bloomed a demanding need. Arching against him, Reiko whispered, “Oh. Oh, yes.”

  He began to move within her. Gradually the slick profusion of Reiko’s desire lessened the rough, tearing friction. Her body was melting inside, opening to Sano. She clasped him with fierce delight, reveling in the sight of his enjoyment: closed eyes, parted lips, the heaving of his chest. His embrace tightened; she felt the scars under her fingers. It was as if she held all her samurai heroes in her antís. Then rising excitement drowned conscious thought. Reiko was locked in a battle for satisfaction; she was climbing a mountain. Sano’s thrusts drove her higher and higher. Then she reached the peak, where victory waited. Reiko cried out as her body convulsed with a rapture she had never known.

  She was a miracle beyond Sano’s dreams, a wondrous blend of strength and fragility, her body like resilient steel sheathed in silk. Lost in the feel and scent of Reiko, he thrust harder and faster as his need consumed him.

  Unbeknown to her, this was a new experience for him, too: Never before had he been anyone’s first lover. Thus, he’d feared hurting Reiko; he hadn’t been sure he could make the initial act of sex enjoyable for his wife. Because he’d not had a woman for so long, he’d worried that he wouldn’t be able to postpone his release long enough to satisfy Reiko. Now he felt a happiness that went beyond physical gratification. The sight of her beautiful face contorting in ecstasy and the sound of the cries that accompanied her climax lifted him to the verge of his own. This union confirmed their marriage as one in which both could give and receive satisfaction—in life’s daily business, as well as in the bedchamber.

  Arousal and tension rapidly concentrated in Sano’s loins; he heard the surging of his blood, the wild clamor of his heart as he drove deeper into Reiko. She moaned and held him tighter. Then, with a shout that issued from the depths of his soul, he was launched into a timeless space of pure ecstasy. Emptying his seed, Sano shuddered in the throes of a release as much spiritual as carnal. The bitterness, anger, frustration, and sadness of the past fled him in a great rush. When the climax subsided, he felt exhausted, but exhilaratingly refreshed. He rested on his elbows and looked down at Reiko.

  She smiled, lovely and serene. Through the emotion that swelled his throat and stung his eyes with tears, Sano smiled back. After many years of lonely wandering, he was home. Their love had restored to him a lost sense of self and power. There was no limit to what he could do, what they could achieve together.

  Sudden loud noise startled them: cheers, applause, the rat-a-tat of firecrackers. A volley of pebbles showered the roof; torchlight flared in the garden outside; the silhouettes of dancing figures cavorted across the paper windowpanes. The detectives, guards, and servants were celebrating the consummation of their master’s marriage with a traditional wedding-night ceremony.

  “Oh, no.” Sano burst out laughing.

  Reiko joined in. “How did they know?”

  “The walls are thin. Someone heard us, and told everyone else.”

  Far from being annoyed, Sano was touched by the tribute—and glad for the interruption, which gave the new bride and groom something to talk about, filling any awkward silence. Beneath him, Reiko giggled with embarrassed glee. Then came a knock at the door. Hurriedly they disengaged and pulled on their kimonos. Sano answered the door and found Reiko’s nurse, O-sugi, standing outside, holding a laden tray.

  “Some refreshment, Sōsakan-sama?” O-sugi beamed.

  Sano realized that he was starving. “Thank you,” he said, taking the tray and closing the door. He and Reiko performed the necessary ritual of wiping away spilled semen and blood. Then they ate.

  “Here, this will replenish your virility,” Reiko said mischievously, spooning raw fish roe into Sano’s mouth.

  He poured the heated sake. “A toast,” he said, raising his cup, “to the beginning of our marriage.”

  Reiko lifted her cup. “And the success of our investigation.”

  An edge of apprehension cut into Sano’s happiness. He still feared that Reiko would get hurt while pursuing Lady Harume’s killer. As his love for her grew, how could he bear for anything bad to happen to her? Despite her intelligence and training, she was young, inexperienced. How far should he trust her with the difficult, sensitive job of detection?

  However, he had promised Reiko a marriage of partners; he couldn’t go back on his word. Lifting his cup, he drank the sake. Reiko followed suit. Then Sano summarized the progress of the case.

  “I’m assigning Hirata to look into the earlier attempts on Harume’s life,” he added. “And I have some ideas about her mysterious lover.”

  “Well,” said Reiko, “since Lieutenant Kushida is still missing, I guess that leaves Lady Ichiteru and the Miyagi for me. Tomorrow I can ask my cousin Eri to arrange a meeting with Ichiteru, and I’ll visit the daimyo and his wife.”

  Her gaze challenged Sano. This, he realized, was the first test of his resolve. He hated the idea of Reiko going anywhere near a possible murderer. Fighting the impulse to dissuade her, he swallowed words that would turn his promise into a betrayal. He tried to convince himself that Lieutenant Kushida or Harume’s unidentified lover was most likely the killer, while the other suspects posed no threat to his wife. At last he nodded.

  “All right,” he said, “but please be careful.”

  32

  Morning brought milder weather, with a south wind blowing in from the sea. Puñy white clouds, like the stylized designs painted on Chinese porcelain, floated in the cerulean blue sky as Sano and Hirata rode along the Great North-South Road, Edo’s main thoroughfare. Merchants slid open the wooden shutters of their shops, revealing fine furniture, paintings, lacquerware, and fabrics; servants mopped doorsteps. The street began to fill with peddlers and tea vendors, peasants calling cheerful greetings to one another, orange-robed priests with begging bowls, ladies riding in palanquins, mounted samurai.

  Sano said, “We need to talk, Hirata-san.”

  Hirata felt a constriction of his veins, heart, and windpipe. “Yes, Sōsakan-sama,” he said heavily.

  “The false case against Lady Keisho-in and Priest Ryuko was primarily Chamberlain Yanagisawa’s doing,” Sano said, “with coincidental supporting evidence from the diary, Harume’s father, and Choyei’s murder. But another person contributed to the fiasco that could have cost us our lives, if not for my wife’s independent investigation: Lady Ichiteru.”

  His expression grave, Sano spoke with reluctance, obviously no more eager for this conversation than Hirata. “You were responsible for questioning Ichiteru, but somehow you managed to learn nothing at all during your first interview with her. When I asked you what the problem was, you avoided answering. It isn’t like you to be evasive—or incompetent—but I let the matter go because I trusted you to work things out yourself. I trusted your detective instincts and accepted Ichiteru’s statement without corroborating testimony, as you did. Now I see that I made a mistake.”

  Shame assailed Hirata. He’d betrayed his master’s trust, an unforg
ivable sin. A long night spent in self-recrimination had increased his guilt. Now Sano’s words tore his spirit. The beauty of the day, the sunlight that sparkled on the canals, seemed to mock his woe. He longed to die on the spot.

  “Something’s wrong,” Sano said, “and I can’t ignore it any longer. When Ichiteru told you about overhearing Keisho-in and Ryuko plotting to kill Harume, what made you so ready to believe her? You know that criminals often lie to incriminate other people and divert suspicion from themselves. What happened between you and Ichiteru?”

  Hirata saw that Sano was less angry than concerned, more intent on understanding than chastising. Sano’s sympathy made him feel even worse, because it required an explanation when he would have preferred a sound beating. Reluctantly he poured out the whole miserable tale of Ichiteru’s seduction, his own gullibility. He forced himself to watch the dismay on Sano’s face. When he finished, he said, “There’s no excuse for what happened. I should have known better. Now I’ve disgraced myself and let you down.”

  Blinking away tears, Hirata drew a deep, tremulous breath. “I’ll leave today.” He would find a private place to commit seppuku, thereby redeeming his honor.

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Alarm blared in Sano’s voice and eyes: He knew what Hirata was thinking. “You’ve made a bad mistake, but it’s the first since you entered my service. I’m not going to dismiss you, and I forbid you to leave!”

  Then he said more calmly, “You’re punishing yourself harder than I ever could. I forgive you; now, you do the same. We’ve no time to waste dwelling on what’s past. I need you to go to Daikon Quay and see if you can pick up any leads on Choyei’s murder. Then visit the scene of the dagger attack on Lady Harume—maybe something there will point us to her killer.”

  “Yes, Sōsakan-sama.” Relief eased the constriction inside Hirata; he could breathe again. Sano was giving him another chance! “Thank you.”