The Samurai's Wife Part 13

Asagao and her ladies-in-waiting took Reiko to a corner of the courtyard, where a large parasol shaded a table that held a mirror, brushes, combs, hair ornaments, and jars of makeup.

"Bring us some wine, Gojo-san," called Lady Asagao, "then go and prepare the stage for the first scene."

The young man complied. Two ladies-in-waiting began restyling Reiko's hair, while the others drank wine and offered suggestions. Reiko sipped the sweet plum liquor, hoping it would ease her embarra.s.sment. Asagao smeared a mixture of grease and white rice powder on Reiko's face.

"You must think we're frivolous to spend our time this way," Asagao said, pausing to gulp wine from her cup, "but there's so little else to do here, and life gets terribly dull."

Reiko tried not to wince as the warm, thick makeup coated her skin, or recoil from the too-intimate contact with her new acquaintances. "I would have thought that the shocking incident in the Pond Garden offered some diversion."

Asagao looked perplexed; then her face cleared. "Oh, you mean the death of Left Minister Konoe." She dismissed the murder with a flick of her fingers. "That was ages ago. The excitement is past. You probably think I'm callous for having fun during the mourning period, but I refuse to suffer months of gloom and boredom, even though my father says I should."

She added, "My father is Right Minister Ichijo."

Reiko remembered that Ichijo was the man serving as intermediary in Sano's relations with the Imperial Court, and that he'd become its chief official after the death of Konoe. Apparently, he had followed the ancient practice by which n.o.bles achieved dominance over the throne: intermarriage with the imperial family.

"I see no reason to grieve for the left minister," Asagao said, picking up a brush and applying pink tint around Reiko's eyelids, "especially since I'm glad he's dead."

Her blunt admission hung in the air like a bad smell. The ladies-in-waiting suddenly became very busy refilling the wine cups and applying camellia oil to Reiko's hair. Reiko was too startled to speak, but Asagao continued as if unaware of how her words might reflect upon her: "That horrible old tyrant! Do you know what he did to me?"

"No, what did he do?" Reiko said, hiding her eagerness.

"He decided I was spending too much money," Asagao said, puffed up with indignation. "So he reduced my allowance. I was to have no new clothes or amus.e.m.e.nts for the rest of the year. I, the emperor's consort, was to live like a pauper!"

"It must have been very unpleasant for you." Reiko marveled at her luck in having a suspect so ready to volunteer information. She hinted, "I wouldn't blame you if you had decided to take revenge against the left minister."

"And that's just what I did," Asagao declared, swallowing another drink.

Her words had begun to slur, and her eyes had a gla.s.sy shine. Perhaps intoxication had loosened her tongue, Reiko thought, but Asagao seemed the kind of person who often neglected to think before she spoke. What a contrast between the emperor's mother and his consort! The ladies-in-waiting were pulling Reiko's hair upward and jabbing in pins, but Reiko, intent on Asagao, hardly noticed the pain in her scalp.

"First I went to my father, but he said there was nothing he could do; Left Minister Konoe outranked him." Asagao applied rouge to Reiko's cheeks with a sponge. "Then I complained to Tomohito. But Tomohito said I should go along with the left minister and stop wasting money.

"I begged. I cried. I was so angry! Why should he listen to a mere kuge official instead of me? Oh, how I hated the left minister for coming between us!" Asagao's voice rose to a querulous pitch.

Reiko nodded and murmured sympathetically. "What did you do next?" she said, her heartbeat quickening with antic.i.p.ation.

A moment pa.s.sed in silence as Asagao dipped a small brush into red pigment, moved closer, and began painting Reiko's lips, frowning in concentration. Her features, magnified by proximity, seemed stronger, rendering her less giddily feminine. Reiko stifled an urge to flinch. In Asagao's veins ran the blood of ancestors who had ruled j.a.pan from behind the emperor's throne. To satisfy her appet.i.te for power, might she have studied the martial arts in secret, exercising the spiritual energy that existed in every human, until she acquired the force of kiai?

Could the spirit cry have issued from that soft, sensuous mouth?

Asagao drew back, set down the brush, and drained her wine cup again. "I didn't do anything," she said, her expression sulky. "There was no way to get back at the old miser. When he died, I thanked the G.o.ds, because now my father is in charge, and he lets me have everything I want."

Disappointment flooded Reiko. She chastised herself for expecting a confession. Lady Asagao might lack Lady Jokyoden's intelligence; yet her vanity indicated an instinct for self-preservation. However, Reiko couldn't quite picture Asagao as the killer. Despite her obvious antipathy toward the victim, Asagao appeared basically weak and flighty. It was easier to believe she had benefited from someone else's crime. But Reiko couldn't eliminate her as a suspect without establishing the important missing fact about Asagao.

"Did you see anything on the night of the murder that might reveal who killed the left minister?" Reiko asked.

"How could I have?" Asagao looked puzzled. "I was nowhere near the Pond Garden."

"Oh? Where were you?" Reiko said casually.

Alarm leapt in Asagao's eyes. Reiko heard a simultaneous intake of breath from the ladies-in-waiting. They sat frozen and stoic, heads bowed.

"I don't remember. It was such a long time ago." Asagao's gaze skittered away from Reiko, then back again, bright with the need to convince. "Wait!" she cried. "I was in the summer pavilion, with my ladies-in-waiting. We were drinking wine and playing the samisen." She looked to the other women, her expression demanding confirmation. "Weren't we?"

With uncertain smiles, the women nodded; yet Reiko didn't need to see their guilty reactions to know they were lying. Yoriki Hoshina's report had placed the ladies-in-waiting in their quarters together just before the murder, not with Lady Asagao. And if Lady Jokyoden had been walking around the pavilion as she claimed, she would have noticed the lights and noise of a party. The evidence supported Jokyoden's story and refuted Asagao's.

The consort huffed, "All this talk about murder upsets me terribly. Let's have no more of it." She inspected Reiko, and a pleased smile banished her nervousness. "I think you're ready for the stage." She held up the mirror so Reiko could see herself. "How do you like it?"

Reiko stared at her reflection, aghast. Her hair was sculpted into mounds and coils studded with gaudy floral ornaments. Exaggerated brows arched on her forehead; pink half-moons colored her eyelids. A circle of rouge dotted each cheek, and large, curving red lips masked her own. She looked the exact picture of a low-cla.s.s courtesan.

"I don't know what to say," she murmured, cringing in shame. Asagao's handiwork disgraced her rank, samurai heritage, and natural modesty. Reiko knew that many men admired the style of prost.i.tutes, but Sano would be horrified to see her this way.

Asagao laughed in delight. "You look beautiful!" The ladies-in-waiting chorused their agreement. "Come along!"

The women ushered Reiko to the stage, which now sported a new backdrop showing a street in the pleasure quarter where the play's doomed lovers had met. Lord Gojo and the other courtiers positioned a large wooden cage that represented the window of a brothel. Asagao, Reiko, and the ladies-in-waiting sat inside this. Someone handed Reiko a silk-covered book.

"We're ready. Let's begin!" Asagao cried.

Courtiers strolled back and forth in front of the window cage, cracking lewd jokes and ogling the women.

"Oh, how this sordid life saddens my spirit," Asagao recited in a tragic voice. "I wish my darling Jihei could buy my freedom and marry me!" She opened Reiko's playbook, whispered, "Your character's name is Snowdrop. Start reading here," and pointed to the correct line.

"How unfortunate that you've fallen in love with a poor potter who already has a wife," Reiko read in a barely audible voice. As a leering courtier approached her, she continued, "Ah, master-the cherry blossoms are in full bloom tonight. Would you partake of their sweetness?"

Flirtatious banter followed. Ready to die of humiliation, Reiko blushed under her makeup. The daughter of a magistrate and wife of the shogun's sosakan-sama, behaving thus! She longed to rush off the stage, yet determination held her captive. Lady Asagao had reason and probable opportunity to commit murder, and still no alibi. If Reiko wanted to find evidence against Asagao, she must stay in the good graces of the emperor's consort.

The play progressed. Between lines, Asagao nudged Reiko and whispered happily, "Isn't this fun?"

9.

The merciless afternoon sun illuminated the tile roof and half-timbered walls of the imperial study hall, a small structure within the conglomerate of buildings that comprised Emperor Tomohito's residence. While Sano interviewed the emperor's attendants inside the hall, Right Minister Ichijo stood on the shaded veranda, eavesdropping through the open window. Watching several of Sano's troops pacing through the landscaped grounds between the study hall and the Pond Garden, he was secretly anxious because the sosakan-sama hadn't questioned him regarding Left Minister Konoe's murder.

Was Sano unaware of his relationship with Konoe? Ichijo had no doubt the metsuke records described it in detail, and couldn't believe that Sano hadn't targeted him as a suspect. Sano had learned that Emperor Tomohito, Prince Momozono, Lady Jokyoden, and Lady Asagao had been away from their quarters, their whereabouts unknown, at the time of the murder; why didn't he also know that the same incriminating circ.u.mstance applied to Ichijo?

Still, Sano's ignorance was a stroke of good fortune, because Ichijo knew that if Sano found out about him and accused him of murder, he would be convicted; virtually all trials ended in a guilty verdict. Ichijo envisioned his distinguished career ending at the public execution ground, amid uproarious scandal. All morning he'd hovered around Sano, listening to the interviews in constant fear that someone would tell Sano what many in the court knew and might reveal if asked the right questions. Although Sano didn't need his services at present, Ichijo was too anxious to keep track of the investigation to force himself to leave.

Yet he realized that his behavior might provoke Sano's suspicion. Now he forced himself to walk away, out the gate, and down the pa.s.sage through the kuge district toward his residence.

Suddenly, a Tokugawa soldier stepped from around a corner. Solid and grim-laced, he blocked Ichijo's path. "Honorable Right Minister, please come with me," he said.

"Where?" Ichijo said, startled. "Why?"

The soldier merely repeated, "Come with me," in a tone that discouraged refusal.

Alarm seized Ichijo. Every instinct warned him not to go, but disobeying a bakufu order would bring harsh punishment. Longing for the days when his ancestors ruled j.a.pan and the power of the Imperial Court was supreme, Ichijo let the soldier escort him out the northern palace gate.

In the street outside waited more soldiers, and a black palanquin manned by four bearers. "Sit inside," the soldier ordered Ichijo.

Ichijo reluctantly complied. When the soldier closed the slatted blinds over the windows of the sedan chair and barred the doors shut, Ichijo's alarm turned to fear. "What's going on?" he called. "Am I under arrest?"