The Red Chrysanthemum

by Laura Joh Rowland

  Instead Sano said, “Because who else is there that you can trust any more than you do me?”

  Lord Matsudaira gravely considered his answer for a long, suspenseful moment. Sano offered him the tree. He hesitated, then took it, but his eyes flashed a warning at Sano.

  “If I ever have reason to regret my decision,” he began.

  An outburst of childish voices interrupted him. Running footsteps squished across the wet garden. A little boy and girl arrived breathless in the shed.

  “Grandfather!” they cried. Each grabbed one of Lord Matsudaira’s legs.

  He smiled fondly and hugged them. “What is it, little ones?”

  “He hit me,” the girl said, pouting at the boy.

  “She hit me first,” he protested.

  “Well, then, you’re even,” Lord Matsudaira said. “No more fighting. Run along and play now.”

  As they chased each other around the garden, he watched them with the same fierce, possessive tenderness that Sano felt toward his own son. Then Lord Matsudaira turned to Sano and said, “Remember that you’re not the only man who has a family. If you let me down, they’ll suffer, too.”

  After Sano left the house, Reiko lay in bed, trying to summon the will to face the day. She’d not slept at all last night because her fears and uncertainties had kept her thoughts running in a frantic cycle. She’d forced herself to lie quiet and not waken her husband and son. Now her body and head ached from the effort. Dried tears stiffened her face. She listened to the rain that had begun to fall again. Her chamber felt like a dim cage underwater. She heard the maids cleaning the house; Masahiro had gone off to his martial arts lesson; everyone was busy and productive except her. She must take action, not succumb to the loneliness and despair in her heart.

  One thing she needed to do was try to remember more about the night of Lord Mori’s murder, to counteract the terrible result of her first attempt.

  The other was to confront old enemies.

  Both prospects were so daunting that Reiko wanted to pull the quilt over her head and give up. But she heard Masahiro shouting in the garden as he practiced sword-fighting. She must be strong for his sake if not her own.

  She arranged herself on her back with her legs straight and arms resting palms up at her sides. She breathed slowly and deeply, letting her thoughts drift. Her entire body balked at the plunge into the terrifying past, but she persevered. After a long while she entered a meditative trance. Her spirit existed in a space outside herself. She saw herself lying in the bed, while she floated above it, for the instant before her mind zoomed along a black, starlit cosmic tunnel, back in time.

  Once again that foggy night at the Mori estate wrapped her in its sounds of water dripping and distant voices, its sensations of dampness and danger. Once again Reiko was kneeling on the veranda of the private quarters, turning away from the spy-hole. She stood, stumbled, and fell as unconsciousness drew her down, down, into a whirlpool of blackness. Once more she drifted in it, until she found herself inside Lord Mori’s chamber again.

  She lay naked on the bed. His face was above hers, so close that she could smell the sour breath from his open, drooling mouth. His eyes were half-closed, his expression blank. Her arms were embracing him, her legs wrapped tight around his waist. His body humped against hers with repeated thuds that shook the floor beneath them. Reiko felt herself gasping and the slickness of their sweat. Laughter and jeering echoed in her mind.

  Even as she recoiled from this vision, it disappeared. Now Reiko was seated upright. She held her dagger, its hilt clenched in both her fists, its blade pointed outward. The image of Lord Mori emerged from a blur of light and motion before her. His eyes were wide and his mouth agape with terror; he flung out his arms in a wordless plea. A mighty lunge propelled her toward him. The blade of her dagger sank deep into his stomach. He howled, deafening Reiko. The jeering and laughter escalated to a maniacal pitch. Blood spewed from the wound onto her.

  Reiko cried, “No!” She struggled to bring herself out of the trance, but it enmeshed her as if it were an invisible steel net.

  She was slumped over a puddle of blood that seeped across the tatami from the prone, motionless, naked body of Lord Mori. A white chrysanthemum floated in the puddle, its petals slowly turning red. Her hands were laid palms up on the floor in front of her. They held Lord Mori’s severed, blood-smeared genitals, warm and slippery as fresh meat.

  Serves you right, you evil bastard. The words reverberated, gloating and triumphant, through Reiko. Shock exploded her trance. Her body convulsed in spasms; her limbs jerked. She launched herself upright, fell forward, and wailed.

  Someone cried, “Reiko-san!”

  She turned and saw Midori standing in the doorway. Midori’s face was filled with puzzlement and concern. She hurried over to Reiko, knelt, and hugged her. “I heard what happened. I’m so sorry! I would have come yesterday, but the baby was sick. Are you all right?”

  Her friend’s compassion soothed Reiko. Even though her heart was still pounding and her body trembling, her hysteria faded. Relaxing against Midori, she caught her breath. “Yes. I am. Thank you for coming. I’m glad to see you.”

  She suddenly realized that not one of the other women she considered friends had come to see her since the murder; nor had her relatives. They must be less curious about her than afraid to associate with such a scandalous criminal as she appeared to be. Yesterday afternoon her father had visited her, but she’d been so upset by her first attempt to relive the night of the murder that she could hardly speak to him. Otherwise she’d been shunned. Even the servants kept their distance from her. She was a pariah.

  “I heard you screaming,” Midori said. “What’s the matter?”

  Only that Lady Mori is right: Lord Mori and I were lovers; I seduced him that night; then I stabbed him because he spurned me. And after he was dead, I castrated him. Serves you right, you evil bastard.

  Reiko drew a deep, shuddering breath. She couldn’t tell Midori that she was now certain she’d murdered Lord Mori and her own memory was the strongest proof. Instead she said, “It must have been a bad dream.” A bad dream that was real and wouldn’t go away.

  “I know you didn’t do it,” Midori said with sincere, heartfelt conviction. “No matter what people say.”

  Reiko could imagine what they were saying about her. Tears of gratitude stung her eyes. “I appreciate your loyalty.”

  “Don’t worry, Reiko-san. Your husband and mine will prove that you’re innocent,” Midori said.

  But Reiko feared that it was only a matter of time until Sano found proof of her guilt. Then his love for her would turn to hatred and disgust. He would let the law take its course with her. Unable to bear these thoughts, Reiko clung to a shred of hope that she was innocent despite her memories, despite Hirata’s news that Lily and Jiro didn’t exist. Now it was time to take the next course of action that she dreaded.

  “I can’t just sit here while my husband and Hirata-san do everything for me,” Reiko said. She went to the cabinet and took out clothes to wear. “I have to help myself or go mad waiting.”

  “But what can you do?” Midori asked.

  “I’m going to talk to some people who might be responsible for murdering Lord Mori and framing me.” She summoned a maid and said, “Fetch Lieutenant Asukai.”

  While Midori helped her dress and arrange her hair, Reiko pondered which enemy she should confront first. They were all people she’d run afoul of while doing her private detective work. But the one that was most conveniently at hand also had ties to Lord Mori.

  When Lieutenant Asukai arrived, Reiko told him, “Bring me Colonel Kubota of the Tokugawa army.”

  As Sano left the Tokugawa enclave with his retinue, one of his soldiers came hurrying along the passage to him. “You’d better have good news for me,” Sano said, tense from his meeting with Lord Matsudaira.

  How narrowly he and his family had escaped death! And Lord Matsudaira had given him extra incentive to
solve the crime. Yesterday Sano could have watched Lord Matsudaira fall without regret; he’d taken so much abuse from the man that he’d felt little sympathy for him until a few moments ago. Today he shouldered responsibility for a comrade who aspired to honor and had a family he loved whose fate depended on the outcome of the investigation and the balance of power.

  “I do have good news,” the soldier said. “It’s from the men you sent looking for the medium. They’ve found Lady Nyogo. She’s at the nunnery at Kan’ei Temple.”

  The panther bides its time, springing neither too late nor too early. Inside his estate, Hirata stood in a pavilion surrounded by white sand raked in parallel lines around mossy boulders and gnarled shrubs. He was practicing a martial arts exercise that Ozuno had taught him. Envisioning himself as the panther in a jungle at night, he held himself perfectly still and relaxed, yet ready to pounce. He breathed slowly while he listened to Ozuno’s voice in his mind.

  Be at one with the cosmos, at peace with yourself. Should an enemy come near, your nonchalance will lull him into thinking you are no threat and put him off guard. If you draw your weapon, if you reveal that you sense an attack at hand, you will lose the advantage of surprise.

  Hirata pictured an assassin creeping into the edge of his vision. He tried to project a calm, tranquil mood even as his mind wandered to the murder investigation.

  Be in the here and now! Don’t journey into the past or future. That’ll get you killed, you fool!

  He couldn’t stop worrying about Sano and Reiko’s future and his own. Stealing even this brief time for his training could jeopardize them all. He closed his eyes, the better to concentrate on the exercise.

  Keep your eyes open! Don’t shut out the world! A warrior must learn how to achieve inner peace in any circumstance. Only then can he know the proper actions to take during combat. Otherwise he falls prey to insecurity and confusion.

  Soon Hirata’s bad leg cramped from standing too long. He shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position.

  Don’t be distracted by physical sensations. Feel the energy flowing inside you as you breathe.

  Alas, the world clamored with stimuli that Hirata couldn’t ignore. Rain pelted the roof and sand; the breeze dashed drops against him. Mosquitoes buzzed. Hirata stifled a desire to swat them. His face itched from bites.

  Feelings are obstacles within yourself that you must not let distract you. You must learn to exercise control over them. If you cannot, then neither can you exercise control over an opponent during battle.

  As Hirata doggedly persevered, Midori came hurrying toward him. “Husband! What are you doing?”

  “Nothing,” Hirata said, annoyed by the interruption.

  “Oh.” Midori’s face took on a familiar look of reluctant forbearance. She understood how important his training was to him, but she thought it kept him away from home and his duties too much and the risks outweighed the benefits.

  “What do you want?” Hirata asked.

  “Here’s Detective Oda.” Midori had brought the samurai with her. “He wants to tell you something.”

  She flounced away. As Oda approached him, Hirata tried an experiment. He formed a mental image of himself lunging at Oda and projected his mental energy in a wordless, violent threat toward the detective.

  Oda joined Hirata in the pavilion. “What’s the matter?” he said with a laugh. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Never mind,” Hirata said curtly. His mental attack should have frightened Oda, but his powers weren’t working any better than they had at the temple.

  Maybe Midori was right.

  “Tell me the news,” Hirata said.

  “I’ve investigated Lord Mori’s stepson’s alibi,” Detective Oda said. “I rode to Totsuka and found that Enju seems to have spent the night of the murder at an inn there. His name was signed in the guest book. It’s also in the records at the checkpoints along the highway between Totsuka and Edo.”

  “When do the records say he came back to town?”

  “The afternoon of the day you discovered Lord Mori’s body.”

  “So it looks as if Enju didn’t have opportunity to kill his stepfather.” Hirata was disappointed, but Enju wasn’t cleared yet. Records didn’t tell the whole story. “Did you find anyone along the road who actually recognized him and remembers seeing him?”

  “I asked hundreds of people, but no,” Oda said. “The innkeeper and some checkpoint officials recalled a man who went by the name Mori Enju. Their descriptions seem to match him. But we can’t be sure that it was really him they saw, or someone else using and signing his name.”

  “He could have sent someone else out there while he stayed home and murdered Lord Mori. The estate is so big he could have hidden there with no one the wiser.” But Hirata knew this was pure speculation.

  “There is a bit of news that might please you,” Detective Oda said. “I talked to a patrol guard who knows Enju and remembered him, but not from this trip. He ran into Enju and Lord Mori traveling from their province to Edo just after the New Year. He overheard them arguing on the road.”

  “Oh? What did they say?”

  “The guard thinks Enju said something like, ‘No. I won’t do it. Not ever again.’ Lord Mori said, ‘You’ll do as I say.’ Enju was furious. He rode off, calling over his shoulder, ‘You’ll be sorry.’”

  “Well,” Hirata said, gratified, “it sounds as if things weren’t as perfect between them as Lady Mori said. Enju certainly bears more investigating.”

  “That may be difficult because nobody inside the Mori estate will talk about the family,” Detective Oda said.

  “Even if nobody inside wants to talk, someone outside might,” Hirata said.

  Seated on the dais in the audience chamber, Reiko took a deep breath, steadying herself for a confrontation that would not be pleasant.

  Two guards walked into the room, escorting Colonel Kubota. He was a samurai in his forties with a proud carriage that compensated for his short stature. He wore an ornate armor tunic and metal leg guards, but Reiko knew it was all for show. He spent his days inspecting and drilling troops; he rarely practiced martial arts himself. During the war he’d sat on his horse at the edge of the battlefield, yelling orders to the soldiers; his sword had never left its scabbard.

  He used what combat skills he had in more intimate quarters.

  He had bland, soft features, his mouth upturned in a permanent smile. Wrinkles around his eyes signified good humor. But his gaze was hard and cruel as he beheld Reiko.

  She nodded at her guards. They left, but she’d given them orders to wait outside the door in case she needed them.

  Colonel Kubota dispensed with formal courtesies required of a visitor. “How dare you have me dragged away from my work and brought to you?” His voice was quiet, but threatened to blare into furious shouting. Reiko had heard it happen before. “What’s this all about?”

  “Greetings. Please be seated.” Suppressing her revulsion toward him, Reiko gestured to the floor below and opposite her.

  He knelt, bristling with resentment. “If you weren’t the honorable chamberlain’s wife, I wouldn’t have come. I’d just as soon spit on you.” Although his features remained set in their pleasant lines, anger burned in his eyes. “Isn’t it enough that you destroyed my marriage? What more do you want with me?”

  “I must remind you that you were the one who destroyed your marriage,” Reiko said evenly. “You beat your wife for twenty years. When I met her last summer, she had bruises all over her body. She had dizzy spells because you’d banged her head against a stone floor.”

  “A man can treat his wife however he pleases,” Colonel Kubota huffed. “It’s her duty to submit to him. Setsu had no right to bring you into a private family matter.”

  His wife had heard of Reiko’s services to people in trouble and turned to her for help. Reiko remembered how the small, frightened woman had sat in this very room, whispering her tale of torture at the hands
of her husband. When Reiko had agreed to rescue her, Lady Setsu had wept with gratitude. She’d also warned Reiko that the colonel would turn his wrath on her.

  “You had no right to interfere,” he said. “You had no right to take the law into your hands and get Setsu a divorce.”

  “Someone needed to interfere. And the law should protect innocent citizens from harm.” Reiko had gone to her father the magistrate, explained Lady Setsu’s plight, and asked him to intervene on her behalf. Magistrate Ueda had granted the divorce, against Colonel Kubota’s wishes, in the Court of Justice. He’d also decreed that if Kubota went near his wife, he would be sentenced to live as an outcast for three years. The decree was not just unconventional, but unheard of. Colonel Kubota had exploded in a fit of rage and shouted curses at his wife, at the magistrate, and most of all at Reiko.

  “You took Setsu away from me.” His smile was ugly, distorted by animosity. Reiko knew he wasn’t angry at her because he loved and missed his wife. “Now she’s living in my country villa that you had the magistrate steal from me, on money that he forced me to settle on her.”

  “It was only fair that you should return the dowry she brought to your marriage,” Reiko said. “That villa was part of it. She deserved some compensation for her years of suffering.”

  “You did more than compensate her.” Kubota bunched his fists, as though ready to strike Reiko. “You severed my connection with an important clan. You disgraced me in public.” Fury tensed the sinews in his neck. Hatred blazed like flames from him. On the verge of exploding as he had in the Court of Justice, he said, “Someday I’ll take my revenge on you.”