The Concubine's Tattoo Part 4

The bearers obeyed. Disembarking, Reiko hurried into her father's house, to her childhood room. From the cabinet she took her two swords, long and short, with matching gold-inlaid hilts and scabbards. Then she returned to the palanquin and settled herself for the trip back to Edo Castle, hugging the precious weapons-symbols of honor and adventure, of everything she was and wanted to be.

Somehow she would make a purposeful, satisfying life for herself. And she would begin by investigating the strange death of the shogun's concubine.

4.

In the slums of Kodemmacho, near the river in the northeast sector of the Nihonbashi merchant district, Edo Jail's complex of high stone walls, watchtowers, and gabled roofs hulked over its surrounding ca.n.a.ls like a malignant growth. Sano rode his horse across the bridge toward the iron-banded gate. Sentries manned the guardhouse; doshin herded miserable, shackled criminals into the jail to await trial, or out of it toward the execution ground. As always when approaching the prison, Sano imagined that he felt the air grow colder, as if Edo Jail repelled sunlight and exuded a miasma of death and decay. Yet Sano willingly braved the danger of spiritual pollution that other high-ranking samurai avoided. In the city morgue, housed inside the peeling plaster walls, he hoped to learn the truth about the death of Lady Harume.

The sentries opened the gate for Sano. He dismounted and led his horse through the compound of guards' barracks, courtyards, and administrative offices, past the jail proper, where the howls of prisoners drifted from barred windows.

In a courtyard near the rear of the jail, Sano secured his horse outside the morgue, a low building with scabrous plaster walls and a s.h.a.ggy thatched roof. He took the bundled evidence from Lady Harume's room out of his saddlebag. Crossing the threshold, he braced himself for the sight and smell of Dr. Ito's gruesome work.

The room held stone troughs used to wash the dead; cabinets containing the doctor's tools; a podium in the corner, piled with books and notes. At one of the three waist-high tables, Dr. Ito a.s.sembled a collection of human bones in their relative positions. His a.s.sistant, Mura, cleaned a pan of vertebrae. Both men looked up from their work and bowed when Sano entered.

"Ah, Sano-san. Welcome!" Dr. Ito's narrow, ascetic face brightened with glad surprise. "I did not expect to see you. Is this not the day of your wedding?"

Dr. Ito Genboku, Edo Morgue custodian, whose scientific expertise had aided Sano in many investigations, was also a true friend-rare in the politically treacherous Tokugawa regime.

Shrewd of gaze and keen of mind at age seventy, Dr. Ito had short, abundant white hair that receded at the temples. His long, dark blue coat covered a tall, spare frame. Once esteemed physician to the imperial family, Dr. Ito had been caught practicing forbidden foreign science, which he'd learned through illicit channels from Dutch traders in Nagasaki. Unlike other rangakusha-scholars of Dutch learning-he'd been punished not by exile, but by being sentenced to permanent custodianship of Edo Morgue. Here, though the living conditions were squalid, he could experiment in peace, ignored by the authorities.

"I was married this morning, but the wedding banquet and my holiday were canceled," Sano said, laying his bundle on an empty table. "And once again, I need your help." He explained about Lady Harume's mysterious death, the shogun's orders for him to investigate, and his suspicion of murder.

"Most intriguing," Dr. Ito said. "Of course I shall a.s.sist in any way I can. But first, my congratulations on your marriage. Allow me to present you with a small gift. Mura, will you please fetch it?"

Mura, a short man with gray hair and a square, intelligent face, set aside his pan of bones. He was an eta, one of society's outcast cla.s.s who staffed the jail, acting as corpse handlers, jailers, torturers, and executioners. Eta also performed such dirty work as emptying cesspools, collecting garbage, and clearing away dead bodies after floods, fires, and earthquakes. Their hereditary link with such death-related occupations as butchering and leather tanning rendered them spiritually contaminated, unfit for contact with other citizens. But shared adversity forged strange bonds; Mura was Dr. Ito's servant and companion. Now the eta bowed to his master and Sano and left the room. He returned with a small package wrapped in a sc.r.a.p of blue cotton, which Dr. Ito handed to Sano.

"My gift in honor of your marriage."

"Arigato, Ito-san." Bowing, Sano accepted the package and unfolded the wrapping. Inside the cloth lay a flat, palm-size circle of black wrought iron: a guard meant to fit between the blade and hilt of a samurai's sword. The filigree design was a variation on Sano's family crest, with a crane's elegant, long-beaked head in profile, a slit for the blade cut through its body, and elaborately feathered, upswept wings. Caressing the smooth metal, Sano admired the gift.

"It's just a poor, humble thing," Dr. Ito said. "Mura gathered sc.r.a.p iron in the city. One of the janitors was a metalsmith before being convicted of thievery and sentenced to work here. He helped me make the sword guard at night. It's not really good enough for-"

"It's beautiful," Sano said, "and I'll treasure it always." Carefully he rewrapped the sword guard and tucked the package in his drawstring pouch, more moved by Ito's thoughtful gesture than by any of the lavish presents he'd received from strangers currying favor. Then, to fill the awkward silence that ensued, he opened his bundle and explained the circ.u.mstances of Lady Harume's death. "Her corpse won't arrive for examination until later. But there's a strong possibility that she was poisoned." Sano set out the lamps, incense burners, sake decanter, razor, knife, and ink jar. "I want to know whether one of these things is the source of the poison."

At the doctor's orders, Mura fetched six small, empty wooden cages, and a larger one containing six live mice. Dr. Ito lined the cages up on the table. In the first two small ones, he lit a lamp and incense burner from Lady Harume's room, placed a wriggling gray mouse into each cage, and covered them with cloths.

"This method should expose the mice to any poison in the oil or incense," Dr. Ito said, "while protecting us from dangerous fumes."

In the third cage he set a dish of the sake that Harume had apparently imbibed shortly before her death, and a third mouse. To test the razor, Dr. Ito shaved a patch of hair off a fourth mouse's back; with the pearl-handled knife he made a shallow cut on the fifth mouse's belly, then dropped the animals into separate cages.

"And now the ink." From a cabinet Dr. Ito took one of his own knives. "I'll use a clean blade to avoid introducing extraneous contamination." He made a scratch on the sixth mouse's belly, unstoppered the lacquer jar, and brushed black ink onto the wound. Then he dropped the mouse into its cage and said, "Now we wait."

Sano and Dr. Ito watched the cages. Faint scratchings came from within the two cloth-covered ones. The third mouse sniffed the liquor, then began to drink. The razor-shaved mouse roamed his cage while the others licked their wounds. Suddenly a high shriek rang out.

"Look!" Sano pointed.

The mouse with ink on its cut belly writhed, back arching, tiny claws grasping the air, tail whipping back and forth. Its chest heaved as if trying desperately to suck air into the lungs; its eyes rolled. The little pink mouth opened and closed, emitting cries of agony, then a gush of blood. Sano indicated the symptoms which matched the castle physician's description of those suffered by Lady Harume: "Convulsions. Vomiting. Shortness of breath."

A few more squeals and gasps, a final paroxysm, then the mouse lay dead. Sano and Dr. Ito bowed their heads in respect for the animal that had given its life to the pursuit of scientific knowledge. Then they checked the other cages.

"This mouse is intoxicated, " Dr. Ito said, observing the creature that staggered around the now-empty sake dish, "but otherwise healthy." The shaved animal and the knife-cut one scampered about their cages. "No apparent ill effects here, either." Dr. Ito lifted the cloths off the last two cages, releasing clouds of pungent smoke and revealing two groggy but living mice. "Or here. The ink alone contained poison."

"Could this have been suicide?" Sano asked, still hoping for an easy resolution to Lady Harume's death.

"Possibly, but I think not. Even if she had wanted to die, why choose such a painful method, instead of hanging or drowning herself? Those are the more common means of female suicide. And why bother putting the poison in the ink, instead of simply swallowing it?"

"So Lady Harume was murdered." Dismay tempered Sano's gratification at having his suspicions confirmed. He must report the news to the shogun, the chief castle physician, and palace officials; it would then spread throughout Edo. To prevent destructive consequences, Sano must identify the poisoner, fast. "What substance kills so quickly and horribly?"

"When I was physician to the Imperial Court in Kyoto, I made a study of poisons," Dr. Ito said. "The symptoms caused by this one match those of bish, an extract of a plant native to the Himalayan region. Bish has been used in India and China for almost two thousand years as an arrow toxin, both for hunting and in warfare. As you can see, a small amount introduced into the blood is fatal. People have also died after mistaking the plant's roots for horseradish. But the plant is extremely rare in j.a.pan. I've never heard of any such poisoning cases here."

"Where could the poison that killed Lady Harume have come from?" Sano asked. "Am I looking for a murderer with special knowledge of herbs? Such as a sorcerer, priest, or doctor?"

"Perhaps. But there are druggists who illegally sell poisons to any customer able to pay." Dr. Ito told Mura to remove the mice. Then his expression turned thoughtful. "These merchants usually offer common poisons such as a.r.s.enic, which can be mixed with sugar and dusted onto cakes, or antimony, which is administered in tea or wine. Or fugu, the poisonous blowfish.

"But there was one man who became a legend among physicians and scientists: an itinerant peddler who traveled around j.a.pan, collecting remedies from remote areas and in port cities where the locals possess medical knowledge gleaned from foreigners before j.a.pan was closed to free international trade. His name was Choyei, and I used to buy medicine from him when he pa.s.sed through Kyoto. He knew more about drugs than anyone I've ever met. Mostly he dealt in beneficial substances, though he also sold poisons to scientists who, like myself, desired to study them. And there were rumors that his merchandise had caused the deaths of several high bakufu officials."

"Could he be in Edo now?" Sano asked. If the poison dealer named a recent purchaser of bish, Lady Harume's murder could be solved.

"I haven't seen Choyei-or heard anything of him-in years. He must be about my age now, if he's still alive. An odd, reclusive individual who wandered wherever fancy took him, according to no particular schedule, disguised as a tramp. I heard he was a fugitive from the law."

Though discouraged by this story, Sano didn't lose hope. "If Choyei is here, I'll find him. And there's another possible route to the killer." Sano held up the ink jar. "I'll try to discover where Lady Harume got this, and who could have put poison into it."

"Perhaps the lover for whom she tattooed herself?" Dr. Ito suggested. "Unfortunately, Lady Harume didn't cut his name on her flesh, as courtesans often do, but she would have wished to obscure his ident.i.ty, if he was someone other than the shogun."

"Because a concubine could be dismissed, or even executed for infidelity to her lord," Sano agreed. "And the place she chose for the tattoo suggests that she wanted secrecy." He rewrapped the evidence. "I plan to interview the shogun's mother and her chief lady palace official. Maybe they can provide information about people who might have wanted Lady Harume dead."

Dr. Ito accompanied Sano outside to the courtyard, now shaded by the coming twilight. "Thank you for your help, Ito-san, and for the gift," Sano said. "When Lady Harume's corpse arrives, I'll return for the examination."

After loading the evidence into his saddlebag, Sano mounted his horse, eager to continue the investigation, yet reluctant to return to Edo Castle. Would he find the killer before fear heightened the dangerous personal and political tensions there? Could he avoid becoming a casualty of the inevitable plots and schemes?

5.

Autumn twilight descended upon Edo. Clouds sketched swirls across a pale gold western sky, like script written in smoke. Lanterns burned above gates and in the windows of peasant houses, merchant dwellings, and great daimyo mansions, the Edo residences of landowning lords. A gibbous moon rose amid early stars, distant beacons heralding night and guiding a hunting party that tramped through the Edo Castle forest preserve. Porters laden with chests of supplies followed servants leading horses and barking dogs. Ahead, the hunters, armed with bows, moved on foot among the trees, above which birds soared in prenocturnal flight.

"Honorable Chamberlain Yanagisawa, is it not getting a bit late for hunting?" Senior Elder Makino Narisada hurried to catch up with his superior. The other four members of j.a.pan's Council of Elders followed, huffing and gasping. "There is a most unpleasant chill in the air. And soon it will be too dark to see anything. Should we not go back to the palace and continue our meeting in comfort?"

"Nonsense," Yanagisawa retorted, drawing his bow and sighting along the arrow. "Night is the best time to hunt. Though I cannot see my prey clearly, neither can he see me. It's much more of a challenge than hunting in the unsubtle light of day."

Tall, slender, strong-and, at age thirty-three, at least fifteen years younger than any of his comrades-Chamberlain Yanagisawa moved swiftly through the woods. Night's mystical energy always stimulated his senses. Vision and hearing gained power and clarity until he could detect the slightest motion. In the forest's pine-scented shadows, he heard wings flap softly as a bird landed on a nearby bough. He froze, then took aim.

Hunting aroused Yanagisawa's killing instinct. What better condition in which to conduct affairs of state? He let fly the arrow. With a thump, it struck a tree. The bird flew off unharmed. Squawks arose as a nearby flock took wing in panic.

"A marvelous shot," Senior Elder Makino said anyway. The other elders echoed his praise.

Chamberlain Yanagisawa smiled, not caring that he'd missed his target. He was after larger, more important prey. "Now, what is the next subject on our agenda?"