The Concubine's Tattoo Part 9

Reluctantly Sano went to his bedchamber, but with his mind replaying his argument with Reiko and thinking of what he should have said, he felt too tense to sleep. Amid the folds of discarded clothing on the floor lay the diary he'd taken from Lady Harume's room. Sano picked it up with a sigh. There was nothing like work to take his mind off domestic troubles, and he might actually learn something useful from the murdered concubine's record of her life and private thoughts. He lay down on the futon and pulled the lamp near. Propping himself on his elbow, he opened the diary's mauve-and-green, clover-printed cloth cover and turned to the first page.

The text was written in an awkward hand, with lots of crossed-out mistakes. Like many women, Lady Harume had been barely literate. Maybe this was for the best, Sano thought, considering how Reiko's superior education had fostered her contrary nature. However, as Sano scanned the diary, Harume's natural flair for descriptive prose emerged:

I enter the Large Interior. The guards lead me through the corridors like a prisoner to her cell. Hundreds of women stand and watch. They stop chattering as I pa.s.s, and they're staring at me: such disdain! Staring, staring-greedy, caged animals wondering if the newcomer's arrival means less food for them. But I hold my head up. I may be poor, but I'm prettier than anyone I see. Someday soon I will be the shogun's favorite concubine. And no one will dare disdain me again.

None of the entries was dated, but this first one must have been written just after the New Year, eight months ago, when Harume came to Edo Castle. Sano skimmed pa.s.sages describing the routines and irritations of the Large Interior, Harume's various amus.e.m.e.nts, and her increasingly frequent visits to the shogun's bedchamber.

This place is so crowded that we must eat and bathe in shifts. There is always someone b.u.mping into me whenever I move, always someone in the privy when I have to go, someone's finger in my business, someone's stink in my nose. The bathwater is always sc.u.mmy by the time it's my turn, and the noise never stops, even at night, because someone is always talking, snoring, coughing, or weeping. But although I long for solitude, I am dying of loneliness. The others treat me as an outsider, and I don't like them either. And there's nothing to do except the same things. Every day is like the last, and we don't get to go out often enough.

Yesterday was very hot, with thunder grumbling like angry dragons. We went for a picnic in the hills. I wore my green kimono with the willow leaf pattern. We drank sake and were very merry until all of a sudden, pouring rain! We shrieked and hurried into the. palanquins while servants ran around packing up the food. What great fun to see those haughty senior concubines drenched and squawking like wet hens!-particularly after they had mocked my rustic manners.

Last night I entertained His Excellency again. I wore my red satin kimono printed with lucky characters so that I might bear him a son and be rich and happy for the rest of my life, like Lady Keisho-in.

As Sano had expected, Harume's pillow book resembled those written by imperial court ladies of centuries past, who had doc.u.mented the trivia of life rather than important historic events. About such great occasions as the last, Harume gave no details: Even nave young girls knew that any careless remark about the shogun could bring harsh censure, including dismissal or even death. Harume must also have feared that nosy comrades would read her pillow book and take revenge for unfavorable portrayals. Lady Ichiteru and Lieutenant Kushida appeared only in the middle of a long list ent.i.tled "Things I Dislike About Living in Edo Castle":

39. Being served the tough, crusty rice from the bottom of the pot because the senior concubines get the best food.

40. Ichiteru, who thinks she's better than everyone else just because she's the emperor's cousin.

41. The monthly health examinations, and Dr. Kitano's cold hands on my private parts.

42. Lieutenant Kushida-a terrible pest.

In subsequent pa.s.sages there was no indication of any particular animosity or quarrel that could have led to her murder. Sano was growing drowsy. He turned to the last page.

Yesterday we went on a pilgrimage to Kannon Temple. I love the Asakusa district because the streets are so busy that the guards and palace officials can't keep a close watch over us. We can escape them and wander through the marketplace, buying food and souvenirs at the stalls, having our fortunes told, watching the pilgrims, priests, children, and sacred doves: Freedom!

I hurry along the narrow lanes to the inn. As usual, there's a room already reserved for me, so I slip through the pine groves and bamboo thickets that surround the inn like a small forest. My room is in the rear building-very private. I go inside, close the door, and wait. Soon I hear footsteps crunching on the gravel path. They stop outside my room-

Sano was now wide awake and fully alert. So Lady Harume had used her freedom for secret a.s.signations.

-and I see his tall, thin shadow on the paper window. There's a hole in the pane, and his eye appears. But he doesn't speak, and neither do I. Pretending I'm alone, I slowly take off my cloak. I untie my sash and let my outer- and under-kimonos drop to the floor, facing the window so he can see me, but never meeting his eye.

His shadow stirs. Naked, I run my hands over my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, sighing and licking my lips. His garments rustle as he parts them and loosens his loincloth. I lie on the floor cushions. I spread my legs wide, my womanhood open to him. I caress myself with my fingers. Faster and faster, moaning, arching my back, tossing my head with a pleasure I don't really feel. He gasps and grunts. When I cry out, he does, too-an ugly sound, like a dying animal.

Then I lie still, my eyes half closed. I watch his shadow move past the window and out of sight. When I'm sure he's gone, I dress quickly and hurry back to the market before the palace officials discover I'm not with the other girls. I could be beaten, dismissed, or even killed for what I've done. But he's very rich and powerful. Soon he travels to Shikoku, and we won't meet again for at least eight months. I must get what I can now, from him, no matter the risk.

Aroused by this erotic scenario, Sano felt like a voyeur himself, spying on a dead woman's intimate life. He closed the book and pondered the meaning of what he'd just read. Harume had probably thought that anyone who happened to read the story would deem it a fantasy, but it had the quality of truth. Who was her partner in the bizarre game, and why had she played when she got no pleasure from it? What else might have happened between them? Sano considered the clues: a tall, thin man who was rich, powerful, and bound for an eight-month stay on that southern island...

Then he smiled. He knew of someone who fit the hints Harume had dropped about her paramour. Sano blew out the lamp, lay down with his head on the wooden neck rest, and pulled the quilt over him. Tomorrow he and Reiko would reconcile their differences and begin their happy marriage. And tomorrow, sometime between reporting to the shogun, attending the examination of Harume's corpse at Edo Morgue, and interviewing Lady Ichiteru and Lieutenant Kushida, Sano would visit the latest suspect in Lady Harume's murder: Lord Miyagi Shigeru, daimyo of Tosa Province.

8.

Their breath frosting the morning air, Sano and Hirata strode through Edo Castle's winding pa.s.sages and security checkpoints on their way to report to the shogun. It was another crisp, clear day, though colder than the previous one. Sunlight glittered on the tile roofs of the walled pa.s.sages, flashed through wind-tossed pine boughs above, and reflected off the armor of patrolling guards. Shadows were as precise as paper cutouts, and every sound rang clear: horses' hooves on stone paths; marching footsteps; voices calling. Geese winged across the vast, cloudless blue sky, trailing a streamer of honks over the castle. An invigorating tang of fallen leaves and charcoal smoke spiced the air.

"Did you sleep well?" Hirata asked, alluding to Sano's wedding night with a meaningful look.

"Fine, thank you, " Sano said tersely, hoping Hirata wouldn't pursue the subject. He hadn't seen Reiko today. Unwilling to risk another disastrous scene before work, he'd decided to postpone their next meeting until tonight.

Hirata, ever sensitive to Sano's moods, said, "The men and I had a little celebration planned for you last night. I guess it's just as well that we decided to put it off and let you rest."

Knowing what wedding night festivities were like, Sano fervently agreed. He hoped the meeting with the shogun would progress more smoothly than his marriage. But although he'd a.s.sumed the news that there was no epidemic would have allayed the shogun's concerns, he soon discovered otherwise. Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, ensconced in his private sitting room amid guards and attendants, greeted Sano and Hirata's arrival with an anguished cry.

"Ahh, sosakan-sama," he wailed. "The murder of my concubine has distressed me so much that I could not sleep last night. Now I have the most terrible headache. I feel sick at my stomach, and my, ahh, entire body pains me."

Tokugawa Tsunayoshi lay on the dais, supported by cushions, wearing a bronze silk dressing gown. The fact of Harume's death having belatedly sunk into his mind, he looked shriveled, pale, and much older than his forty-four years. An attendant placed a screen by the window, shielding him from the sunlit paper panes. Others stoked charcoal braziers, heating the room to an ovenlike warmth. A priest chanted prayers. Dr. Kitano hovered beside the shogun with a cup of steaming liquid.

Sano and Hirata knelt and bowed. "I apologize for intruding upon you in your illness, Your Excellency," Sano said. "If you'd like to wait until later for me to report the status of the murder investigation-"

The shogun waved away this suggestion with a feeble hand. "Stay, stay." He raised himself to drink from Dr. Kitano's cup, then eyed it suspiciously. "What is this?"

"Bamboo-ash tea, to soothe your stomach."

"You. Come here!" Beckoning a servant, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi commanded, "Taste this, and, ahh, make sure there's no poison."

"But I prepared it with my own hands," Dr. Kitano said. "It's perfectly safe."

"With a poisoner loose in Edo Castle, one cannot be too careful," the shogun said darkly.

The servant drank. When he remained alive and well after several moments, the shogun finished the tea. Attendants ushered in the ma.s.seur, a bald, blind man. Tokugawa Tsunayoshi pointed at the jar of oil the ma.s.seur carried. "Try that out on, ahh, someone else first."

A guard smeared the oil on his arm. More guards brought caged birds to detect noxious fumes; servants tasted cakes for the shogun. He obviously didn't care about Lady Harume. It was his own vulnerability that worried him, with good reason: a.s.sa.s.sination was a time-honored method by which ambitious warriors overturned regimes and seized power.

"The poison that killed Lady Harume was in a bottle of ink marked with her name," Sano said. "She was clearly the murderer's target- not you, Your Excellency."

"That makes no, ahh, difference." The shogun grunted as his attendants stripped off his robe, exposing sagging white flesh. A loincloth covered his s.e.x and cleaved the withered b.u.t.tocks. Lying facedown, he said, "The poisoning was an indirect attack on me. The murderer will not stop at killing a worthless concubine. I am in, ahh, grave danger."

The ma.s.seur's hands kneaded his back. Servants fed him cakes and tea, while guards placed the birdcages around the room. Sano didn't agree with Tokugawa Tsunayoshi's self-centered view of the murder, but at this stage could not completely dismiss the shogun's fears.. Political intrigue was a possible motive behind the crime. Sano gave the results of his interview with Lady Keisho-in and Madam Chizuru and outlined his plans to question Lady Ichiteru and Lieutenant Kushida. He mentioned that Lady Harume's pillow book indicated an additional suspect, whose ident.i.ty he would determine.

An abrupt stillness fell over the room. Servants and guards ceased their activities; the ma.s.seur's hands froze on Tokugawa Tsunayoshi's body. Hirata inhaled sharply. Sano's nape p.r.i.c.kled in response to the same inaudible signal that had alerted the others. He turned toward the door.

There stood Chamberlain Yanagisawa, regal in brilliant robes, an enigmatic smile on his handsome face. Servants, guards, attendants, and ma.s.seur prostrated themselves in obeisance. Behind Sano's calm faade, his heart seized. Yanagisawa must have been listening next door, and come to obstruct this investigation as he had others.

"Ahh, Yanagisawa-san. Welcome." Tokugawa Tsunayoshi smiled affectionately at his former protg and longtime lover. "Sosakan Sano has just reported on his inquiry into Lady Harume's murder. We would appreciate your advice."

Viewing Sano as a rival for Tokugawa Tsunayoshi's favor, for power over the weak lord and thus the entire nation, Chamberlain Yanagisawa had in the recent past deployed a.s.sa.s.sins to kill Sano and spies to unearth information to use against him. Yanagisawa had spread vicious rumors about Sano and ordered officials not to cooperate with his inquiries. He'd sent Sano to Nagasaki, hoping he would get in enough trouble there to destroy him forever. And Sano knew that Chamberlain Yanagisawa was furious because the ploy hadn't worked.

Upon Sano's return, the shogun and many high officials had gathered at the palace to welcome him. As he pa.s.sed down the receiving line, Chamberlain Yanagisawa had flashed him a look that evoked images of spears, guns, and swords, all aimed straight at him.

Now Sano braced himself for a new attack while Yanagisawa crossed the room and knelt beside him. He felt Hirata stiffen, alert to the threat. His trained senses absorbed the chamberlain's scent of wintergreen hair oil, tobacco smoke, and the distinctive, bitter undertone of corruption.

"It seems as though Sosakan Sano has matters admirably under control," Chamberlain Yanagisawa said.

Sano waited for the jabs at his character, thinly disguised as praise; ridicule masquerading as solicitude; hints at his negligence or disloyalty- all designed to manipulate the shogun into doubting Sano, while saying nothing he could openly refute. Neither by word nor gesture had Sano ever indicated a desire to steal Yanagisawa's power. Why couldn't they coexist peacefully? Anger shot fire through Sano's blood, preparing him for a battle he always lost.

However, Yanagisawa smiled at Sano, enhancing his masculine beauty. "If there's any way in which I can be of a.s.sistance, please let me know. We must cooperate to eliminate the potential threat to His Excellency."