Sano Ichiro 9 The Perfumed Sleeve (2004)

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “Have you something to tell me?” he said.

  “I did it,” Lady Yanagisawa said, gasping. “I did everything you asked.”

  His keen, luminous eyes inspected her for signs of falsehood. Then a deep breath seemed to replenish his spirit and release a flood of anxiety from him. “I now have a foothold in the future,” he said. “And my control over the present is strengthened.” His face relaxed into a gloating, exultant smile. “The advantage is mine. Victory is possible.”

  Lady Yanagisawa savored his pleasure. With giddy, almost unbearable expectation, she waited for her reward.

  Sudden doubt shadowed the chamberlain’s features. “But are you sure that Lady Reiko will cooperate?”

  “I’m sure,” Lady Yanagisawa said, for she believed that a wife who loved her husband would do whatever was necessary to keep his love. Reiko would soon forget her objections and assassinate Lord Matsudaira. The sōsakan-sama would declare Daiemon a traitor and murderer. Lady Yanagisawa would share in the chamberlain’s triumph. That made worthwhile everything that had happened to her.

  Lady Yanagisawa had suffered agonies of doubt and misery before her visit to Reiko. She’d known that by forcing Reiko to do something so wrong she would lose Reiko’s friendship. How alone she would feel without Reiko! Her nerve had almost failed her. Then Reiko had said such terrible things to her. Hatred had gained ascendancy over Lady Yanagisawa’s love for her friend. Reiko deserved to suffer.

  “Very good,” the chamberlain said, reassured. “All I need do is wait for events to take their course.”

  His gaze drifted away from Lady Yanagisawa, as if he were looking at the future when he would rule Japan. “Was there something else you wanted?”

  He’d forgotten her reward, Lady Yanagisawa realized with dismay. “You said that if I…” she stammered. “You promised me that you would...”

  “Ah. What a good memory you have.” Irritation showed on the chamberlain’s face. Lady Yanagisawa sensed him thinking about all the things he had to do that were more important than spending time with her. “Very well,” he said. “A promise is a promise. You deserve your little treat. Come along.”

  Lady Yanagisawa was too desperate to quibble with his attitude. As desire swelled hot and urgent in her, she followed her husband to his bedchamber. It was dim and cold, but Lady Yanagisawa barely noticed. She watched, trembling in a torment of eagerness, while the chamberlain opened a cabinet, hauled out his futon, and threw it open on the floor beside her. Facing her, he stroked her cheek, her lips, her neck. Lady Yanagisawa didn’t mind that his caresses seemed perfunctory. Her lips swelled and her skin tingled at his touch. As the desire flowed its heavy, liquid weight through her breasts and loins, she moaned.

  The chamberlain loosened her robes and dropped them from her. The cold raised bumps on her skin. Heat rising within her steamed from her pores while his hands moved over her. “Please,” she whispered, clutching at him.

  He let her untie his sash and stroke his bare, smooth, muscular chest. With fumbling hands she removed his loincloth. His manhood hung flaccid. His obvious lack of desire for her didn’t discourage Lady Yanagisawa. She sank to her knees. She fondled and sucked his manhood. As it curved erect, she relished its velvet-skinned hardness that pulsated under her tongue and fingers. The chamberlain groaned, and pleasure lowered his eyelids. He let her worship him until she fell back on the futon, gasping with need, her arms outstretched for him. He straddled her and caressed her shoulders; he tongued her nipples; his fingers rubbed hot, wet circles between her legs.

  Inarticulate cries arose from Lady Yanagisawa as he raised her toward the heights of sensation that she’d approached with him two days ago. She went mad with pleasure. Her gaze devoured him; her hands frantically roved his body in an attempt to experience him to the full. To her delight, she saw her need reflected in his eyes, although they didn’t meet hers; she heard his breathing quicken. She eagerly spread her legs wide. He lowered himself, held her, and entered.

  The tight, slick friction when he slid into her! The feel of him moving inside her for the first time in the ten years since they’d conceived Kikuko! Sobbing with rapture, Lady Yanagisawa heaved and writhed under him. Through her tears she saw his face. His eyes were closed, his head tilted back as he thrust. She understood that he didn’t want to look at her and thereby spoil his enjoyment. But her hurt quickly faded. Her insides were melting and unfurling in a blossom of flames, blood, and desire. Her pleasure reached its zenith. Violent waves of ecstasy pulsed through her. She screamed with a joy and release she’d never thought possible. Afloat in a world of fulfillment, she sobbed in gratitude and embraced her husband.

  “Come to me,” she murmured, craving his release as much as she had her own. “Come to me now.”

  He thrust harder and faster, his jaws clenched, every muscle strain ing. Suddenly he reared back on his knees. His manhood whipped out of Lady Yanagisawa. He moaned, arched his back, and spurted hot, wet semen onto her stomach. As he shuddered and gasped, Lady Yanagisawa realized why he’d withdrawn before his climax: He didn’t want to breed another idiot child.

  Happiness yielded to humiliation. The room seemed cold now, as the heat from their coupling dissipated and her bodily sensations waned. Lady Yanagisawa felt slighted by her husband. She regretted the friendship she’d ruined for his sake. Now she couldn’t even turn to Reiko for comfort. And the bloody stain of her guilt would never go away. To please this man who treated her so deplorably, she had doomed her soul to burn forever in the fires of the netherworld.

  Then the chamberlain lay down beside her. Propping himself on his elbow, he smiled into her eyes. “That was good,” he said, and she knew that he meant the service she’d rendered him as well as the sex they’d just had. He whispered, “I love you.”

  Those words compensated Lady Yanagisawa for all the pain he’d caused her. Now she wept for joy. At last she’d won his love! All the evils she’d done seemed worthwhile; all she’d risked or lost was nothing. A radiant future beckoned. The chamberlain would become a real husband to her and a real father to their daughter, just as he’d promised. He would rule Japan; she would help him whenever possible and necessary.

  At this moment, not even Reiko could boast such good fortune as Lady Yanagisawa enjoyed.

  The Kanda district verged upon the northeast boundary of Edo Castle. It was convenient to the seat of political power, yet a world away, and mostly populated by merchants who’d come from central Japan to seek their fortunes. Dyers, blacksmiths, carpenters, plasterers, swordsmiths, and candle makers inhabited various quarters in Kanda, but not all the residents engaged in profitable or legal commerce. Along the bank of the Kanda River were hovels for beggars and outcasts, and a field known as a haunt of the lowest class of prostitutes, the itinerant “nighthawks.” Here, a nobleman could find a haven from the Tokugawa court; he could exist anonymously among people beneath his class and too occupied with the struggle for survival to pay him much notice.

  Sano arrived with Hirata, a squadron of detectives, Otani, Ibe, and their men, in Tsukegi Street. The street was named for the product sold there—charms against fire, Edo’s worst natural hazard. Shops displayed the little figurines made from wood and sulfur. Above the shops were living quarters. These had latticed windows and rickety balconies sheltered by overhanging eaves. Sano and his companions dismounted and secured their horses outside the middle building on the west side of the street, where Daiemon had maintained a secret establishment.

  Its entrance was located in an alley festooned with laundry on clotheslines. Sano and Hirata climbed a creaky wooden staircase to Daiemon’s quarters while the other men waited below. Although Hirata had determined the house to be unoccupied, Sano knocked on the door because Ibe and Otani were watching and he must act as if he knew nothing about the house or who might be there. Nobody answered. Sano tried the door and found it locked, but when he and Hirata shoved hard against it, the catch gave way. Ibe and Otani hastened up the stai
rs and followed them into the house.

  The first room was a kitchen furnished with a hearth and a few dishes and utensils. “Whoever lives here doesn’t do much cooking,” Ibe remarked.

  They passed beyond a sliding partition, into a chamber that contained a tatami floor, built-in cabinets, and an elaborately carved black wooden chest. Charcoal braziers filled with ash stood about the room; a red lacquer table held a porcelain sake decanter and cups. A silk cushion sat before a writing desk made of black lacquer and decorated with floral gold inlays. In one corner, a screen decorated with a painting of a waterfall enclosed a metal tub large enough for a man to bathe in. Such luxurious decor seemed out of place in humble Tsukegi Street.

  “He makes himself comfortable,” Otani said as he opened a cabinet to reveal folded silk bedding and robes.

  Ibe examined the screen. “This wasn’t cheap. He has money.”

  Sano wondered uneasily whether Ibe and Otani would discover whose house this was and what would happen if they did. But Daiemon seemed not to have left any obvious clues to his identity. Sano and Hirata found two smaller rooms, both unfurnished. They returned to the main chamber, where Otani had opened the chest. This held a pair of swords on a rack.

  “Whoever he is, he’s a samurai,” Ibe said.

  Otani lifted out the long sword and frowned in puzzlement. “This dragon design on the hilt looks familiar,” he said. “I’m sure I’ve seen it someplace before… but where?”

  Sano gave Hirata a look that said they’d better finish inspecting the house before Otani recalled that he’d seen his lord’s nephew wearing the sword. While Hirata began searching the cabinet, Sano opened the lid of the desk. Inside he found writing supplies and a pile of gold coins alongside a stack of white rice paper. Sano riffled the sheets and found them all blank except the last, which bore scrawled black writing.

  “What’s that?” Ibe said, leaning over Sano’s shoulder.

  The paper read:

  Makino

  One hundred koban beforehand

  One hundred afterward

  Final payment the next day, at the Floating Teahouse

  Elation vied with apprehension inside Sano. “Unless I’m mistaken, this means that somebody hired somebody else to assassinate Senior Elder Makino,” he said.

  And if Sano was correct, the person who’d hired the assassin had to be Daiemon. Yet Sano was less pleased with the thought that he’d solved the crime than concerned about the consequences of the solution. If he exposed Daiemon as the person responsible for Makino’s death, what then? Chamberlain Yanagisawa would be delighted to have the Matsudaira clan disgraced. Lord Matsudaira would come raging after Sano’s blood... if Sano first survived defying his watchdogs’ orders against investigating Daiemon or involving their lords in the crime.

  “But who’s the assassin?” Ibe said. “And who hired him?”

  A creaking noise outside froze everyone into alert silence. Somebody was coming up the stairs. Sano and Hirata drew their swords and stood to one side of the doorway leading through the kitchen to the entrance. Ibe and Otani also unsheathed their weapons and positioned themselves on the other side. Suspense hushed the room. Sano heard the door open. The footsteps crossed the kitchen. Into the parlor walked a samurai.

  “Halt!” Sano ordered.

  He lunged, his blade pointed at the samurai. Hirata, Otani, and Ibe followed suit. The samurai yelped. His eyes widened and his mouth gaped in horror as four blades impinged on his throat. He fumbled for his own weapon.

  “Don’t even try,” Sano said.

  The samurai gulped, nodded, and held his hands palms up in surrender. He was in his twenties, with a heavy jaw and a square, short, muscular build. His silk garments and expensive swords declared him a member of the upper social ranks.

  “Who are you?” Sano asked.

  Before the samurai could answer, Otani said, “Kubo-san?” Startled recognition marked both men’s faces. “What are you doing here?”

  “Otani-san,” the samurai said with obvious relief at seeing someone he knew. “Please don’t hurt me! Please allow me to explain!”

  “How do you know each other?” Sano said, surprised himself, as he and Hirata and the watchdogs sheathed their weapons.

  “He was a retainer to Daiemon,” said Otani. Then he addressed the young samurai: “By all means explain.”

  Sano saw Hirata’s leery expression. He braced himself for what he knew was coming.

  “I came to get some money and swords that Daiemon left here,” said Kubo. “I thought I should give them to his family.”

  “This was Daiemon’s place?” Otani demanded, as he stared at Kubo, then around the room.

  “Well, yes,” Kubo said nervously. “Only a few of his men know about it. We weren’t supposed to tell. But now that he’s dead, I guess it doesn’t really matter… does it?”

  A brief silence, fraught with tension, ensued while Otani and Ibe grasped the meaning of the news they’d just received. Otani spoke in a tone of dumbfounded revelation: “Those are Daiemon’s swords. I knew I’d seen them before.” He snatched the note from Hirata. “It was Daiemon who wrote this?”

  Kubo peered at the note. “That looks like his writing.”

  Ibe’s face showed dawning enlightenment, then a calculating look. “Daiemon hired the assassin. He was behind Senior Elder Makino’s murder.”

  “No!” Otani exclaimed, aghast. “It can’t be!”

  “This place belonged to Daiemon. He wrote the note,” Ibe said.

  “But—but maybe we’ve misinterpreted the note,” Otani said.

  “What other interpretation is there?” Ibe said.

  Otani opened his mouth, then shook his head.

  “Did I say something wrong?” Kubo said in small voice.

  “Just take the money and swords and go,” Sano told him. “Forget what happened here.”

  Kubo went. “Wait until Chamberlain Yanagisawa hears about this,” Ibe gloated. “How glad he’ll be to learn that Lord Matsudaira’s nephew was the guilty one. That should strengthen him and weaken his enemy.”

  “But... ” Shaken and confused, Otani said, “We’re not going to tell the chamberlain. We agreed to leave our superiors and the factions out of the murder investigation… didn’t we?” His eyes implored Ibe. “And we agreed that one of the women should be blamed for both crimes. We can’t expose Daiemon as the killer and traitor!”

  Sano saw that Otani was terrified of Lord Matsudaira’s displeasure and the shogun’s wrath. Since Daiemon was dead and beyond punishment, his clan and its associates would pay for his crime.

  “This changes everything,” Ibe said, wresting the note from Otani’s grip. “I agreed to our pact because I thought it would serve our mutual interests, and I thought one of the women was as likely to be the culprit as anyone else. But now that we know different, I can’t let the wrong person be punished for killing my lord’s friend and ally while the Matsudaira clan goes free. Nor can I hide such important information from Chamberlain Yanagisawa.”

  The man did have some sense of honor and duty after all, Sano saw; but only if it favored his interests. A divergence of interests had shattered the alliance between Sano’s watchdogs. Otani stood frozen by horror that his partner had not only cut him loose, but meant to strike a crippling blow at his lord.

  “Congratulations on solving Senior Elder Makino’s murder,” Ibe said to Sano. "Let’s take the news back to Edo Castle.”

  “No!” Otani shouted as fury roused him to life. He turned to Sano in desperation. “I order you to never speak of what we found here. I order you to arrest Okitsu or Agemaki!”

  His words fell into dead quiet. Nobody moved. “Are you coming?” Ibe asked Sano.

  “Not yet,” Sano said.

  As Ibe regarded him with puzzlement, and Otani with sudden hope of a reprieve, Sano said, “There’s not enough evidence to prove Daiemon is guilty.”

  “What are you talking about?” Ibe said. He waved the note.
“There’s this, written by Daiemon, describing the arrangements he made with the assassin. What more do you want?”

  “Verification that the note is what it appears to be,” Sano said.

  “That it appears to be in Daiemon’s handwriting, and it was found in his house, doesn’t mean anything,” Otani said eagerly. “Someone could have forged the note and planted it here.”

  “Do you question the evidence because you’re afraid of how Lord Matsudaira will react?” Ibe asked Sano.

  “No,” Sano said, although the idea of Lord Matsudaira’s wrath was good reason to hesitate before incriminating Daiemon. And he wasn’t eager to help Chamberlain Yanagisawa come out on top. “I want to be sure that I’ve identified the person truly responsible for Makino’s murder. Even if the note is genuine and it means what we think it means, there are too many questions left unanswered.”

  “Such as?” Ibe said.

  “Such as, who is the assassin?” Sano said. “If indeed he exists, he’s out there somewhere. He can confirm that Daiemon hired him. And he’s just as guilty as Daiemon. He must be caught and punished.”

  “And how did he get into Makino’s estate and kill him without anyone noticing?” Hirata said.

  “And what are the other suspects hiding about the murder?” said Sano, convinced that they’d played roles in whatever had really happened that night. “Where does the perfumed sleeve fit into this?”

  “What does any of that matter,” Ibe protested, “when you can finish your investigation and discharge your duty to the shogun? And why should I care, when we can please my master by deciding that Daiemon was responsible for Makino’s death?”

  “Something might happen later to prove that he wasn’t,” Sano said. “Do you want to take the chance and risk that Lord Matsudaira will retaliate against you as well as Chamberlain Yanagisawa for smearing his clan’s reputation?”