The Samurai's Wife Part 26

Tomohito laughed. "He doesn't scare me."

Unable to restrain himself, Momozono burst out, "Y-your Majesty, perhaps you should be afraid!"

The emperor sat up in the tub, scowling. "Are you presuming to tell me what to do?"

"No, no!" Momozono scuttled over to the tub, knelt, and bowed, trembling in his haste to appease his cousin. "I-I'm only trying to p-protect you, Your Majesty."

He had done so before. When Tomohito had reached the age of thirteen, his unhappiness with his sheltered existence had grown unbearable. More than ever he had yearned to experience life outside the palace, and so had befriended three roguish courtiers a few years his senior. Momozono had watched the emperor listen to their talk of drinking in teahouses, romancing girls, and skirmishing with Miyako's ruffians, his eyes aglow with vicarious excitement. Soon he craved more active partic.i.p.ation in the trio's fun. He began planning adventures for them. At first these were mere pranks, such as stealing fruit from the market and putting an ox calf in a firewatch tower. When the courtiers came back to the palace, Tomohito reveled in their descriptions of the stir they'd created.

Then one day the emperor decided that his friends must break into the shoshidai's house and bring back some token as proof of their success. Prince Momozono happened to be walking through the kuge quarter when the three courtiers returned from their escapade. Hidden by the darkness, he'd heard them arguing and realized that the fun had gone dreadfully wrong.

"We should never have done it!"

"Everything would have been fine if we'd left right after getting inside and taking the shoshidai's personal seal. But no, you got greedy. You had to break open that chest and steal the gold coins."

"How was I supposed to know that the daughter would hear the noise and find us there?"

"Well, you shouldn't have forced yourself on her!"

"I was so drunk I didn't know what I was doing."

"What do we tell His Majesty?"

"Nothing. We'll say that it went perfectly. I'll hide the gold." The latter speaker was Lord Koremitsu, the trio's leader, the one who'd stolen the gold and raped the shoshidai's daughter. Prince Momozono was terribly jealous of Lord Koremitsu, and hated him for his bad influence on Tomohito. "No one will ever know what we did."

The next day, however, police came to the palace. They reported the theft and rape to the chief court n.o.bles, explaining that the shoshidai's guards had chased the criminals to the imperial compound. They meant to identify and punish the culprits. Upon hearing the news, Prince Momozono was filled with dread. What if the bakufu traced the crimes to Tomohito? They wouldn't arrest him, but with this evidence of his bad character, they might force him to abdicate.

Momozono couldn't let his beloved cousin risk such a calamity. If Tomohito abdicated, the next emperor might throw Momozono out of the palace. Momozono had to make sure the bakufu found the culprit and the investigation stopped there. But he couldn't tell what he knew; the bakufu would never believe an idiot. He had to find another way.

Hurrying to his chambers, Momozono wrote on a sheet of paper: Lord Koremitsu is the man you're looking for. He rolled the message inside a scroll case. Then he went to the kuge quarter, where the police were going to every estate, looking for the criminals. He hid around a corner and waited until they came down the pa.s.sageway. Subduing his noises and spasms by sheer act of will, he threw the scroll case in the police officers' path, then fled.

The police went to Lord Koremitsu's home. When they found the gold hidden there, he confessed and revealed the names of his accomplices. To protect their families' positions at court, the young men didn't incriminate the emperor. They were exiled, and the bakufu never learned of Tomohito's role in the crimes. The emperor was safe, and so was Prince Momozono.

But soon new trouble arose. Left Minister Konoe had posed a worse threat to the emperor than had Lord Koremitsu. The emperor's new venture was no harmless prank, and carried a much heavier penalty than theft or a.s.sault. Konoe's death hadn't averted the danger. The second murder had focused the sosakan-sama's investigation more strongly on the emperor. Anonymous letters wouldn't help in this situation. Momozono's only chance of preventing disaster lay in convincing the emperor to cooperate.

Now Momozono said, "Please, y-your Majesty, I beg you to see r-reason. These are dangerous times. Sosakan Sano will keep searching for the k-killer until he's exposed every s-secret in the palace. You must be very careful and n-not give him cause for suspicion."

"Momo-chan, you worry too much," Tomohito said irritably. "The sosakan-sama doesn't know anything." With a regal lift of his head, Tomohito added, "He can't hurt me. No one can. I have the divine protection of the G.o.ds."

Still, Momozono could tell from Sano's questions that even if he didn't know the truth, he suspected plenty. "D-divine protection won't shield you from the Tokugawa."

"All we have to do is stick to our story," Tomohito said, "and everything will be fine. We were playing darts together when Left Minister Konoe died. The other night I was praying in the worship hall. You were with me."

"B-but Sosakan Sano thinks we're l-lying."

"Who cares what he thinks, when he doesn't have proof?" The emperor laughed. "And he'll never get any, because we were together those nights." He fixed a meaningful stare on Momozono. "Weren't we?"

Momozono had no choice but to nod, agreeing to maintain their precarious claim of innocence. Yet he couldn't give up without one last attempt to sway his cousin. "Th-this thing that you're d-doing..." He could hardly bear to think of it, let alone call it by name. "You can't p-possibly succeed. If you go through with it, you'll d-destroy yourself and the whole Imperial Court!"

"Don't be an idiot," Tomohito huffed. "Of course I'll succeed. It's my destiny to rule j.a.pan. And someday..." He lay back in the tub, closed his eyes, and smiled. "Someday soon, I'll be able to do whatever I want."

24.

At Nijo Manor, Reiko awakened alone in bed. The room was bright with sunlight. The nightmares of believing Sano dead and her adventures while seeking his killer seemed far away, but they'd exhausted her, and she'd slept past noon. As she sat up, a maid entered the room, carrying her breakfast tray.

"Where is my husband?" Reiko asked.

"He and his men have already gone out," said the maid.

"What about my guards and palanquin bearers?"

"They went, too."

Reiko felt annoyed at Sano for leaving her with no means of transport. How odd that yesterday she would have given anything, endured any hardships, just to have him back, but now the minor irritations of their life together could fret her once again! Drinking tea and eating pickled vegetables on rice, she pondered how to spend the day. She feared that she'd compromised the investigation by involving Lady Jokyoden, and wished to make up for whatever harm she'd done, but there seemed little she could do.

A glint of light caught her eye. On the table lay one of the coins that Sano had found among Left Minister Konoe's possessions. Reiko picked up the coin and studied the fern design thoughtfully. Detectives Marume and f.u.kida hadn't yet managed to discover the coins' significance, but maybe she would have better luck.

Reiko washed, dressed, and left the inn, taking two maids for company. They walked up and down the hot, crowded streets, visiting shops and tea-houses, food stalls and marketplaces. Everyone Reiko questioned denied having seen such a coin before. Merchants who welcomed her into their establishments turned grim and reticent when shown the coin; clerks, customers, and roving peddlers seemed afraid to look at it. After hours of futile inquiries, Reiko was baffled and frustrated.

"Everyone's lying," she said to her maids. "There's something strange going on."

They stopped at a restaurant that sold tea and cold noodles. A teenaged servant girl with a plain, friendly face brought their food. While they ate, Reiko noticed her watching them. When she knelt to refill Reiko's tea bowl, she whispered, "May I please speak to you?"

Curious, Reiko nodded.

The girl cast a furtive look toward the kitchen, where an elderly couple tended pots boiling on the stove. "I heard that you were asking about coins with a fern leaf on them," she said, still whispering. "Please excuse me if I seem rude, but you must be a newcomer, so I have to warn you that no one here talks of such things, and you shouldn't, either."

"Why not?" Reiko asked.

"Because it's dangerous." The girl leaned closer and said, "The fern leaf is the crest of the Dazai clan. They're very bad men-thieves, hoodlums, murderers. They come to businesses like this and demand money, and they beat up shopkeepers who won't pay. They kidnap girls to work in their unlicensed brothels. They run gambling dens, and if you don't pay your debts, they torture you.

"They're very powerful, very much feared. It's no use reporting them to the police, because they bribe the police to leave them alone. They kill anyone who makes trouble for them. Even to speak of the Dazai is bad luck."

"Mayumi-chan!" called the man in the kitchen. "Stop bothering the customers. Get back to work!"

"Excuse me, I must go." The girl bowed. Before hurrying away, she whispered, "Please heed my warning, for your own good."

Reiko sat mulling over what she'd just heard. Why did the Dazai clan mint coins bearing their crest? How had Left Minister Konoe come to possess the coins? Perhaps he'd been spying on the Dazai. Reiko recalled the thugs she'd seen at Lord Ibe's house. Were they members of the Dazai and a link between Konoe's murder and the plot against the Tokugawa? Reiko shared Sano's belief that the coins were a critical element in the mystery, but how would she discover their meaning if everyone in Miyako refused to talk about them or the Dazai?

The five-hundred-year-old temple of Sanjusangendo was located in Miyako's southern sector, near the east bank of the Kamo River. Worshippers and priests thronged the precinct around its halls, shrines, and paG.o.da. Gongs clanged; children romped. Sano stood alone inside the vermilion east gate, watching the activity while he questioned the wisdom of coming.

He needed information that Left Minister Konoe had probably concealed from the Imperial Court but might have confided to someone outside the palace, however little she'd welcomed his confidences. Hence, Sano had gone to Kodai Temple in search of Kozeri, but his rising agitation forced him to recognize that he wanted more than just answers from her. He told himself that his pursuit of the truth required him to withstand his attraction to Kozeri.

Upon reaching the convent, he learned that she'd gone out begging for alms at Sanjusangendo. Her absence was a good excuse to avoid her, yet he needed evidence to connect the rebel conspiracy with the murder case. Now he walked through the precinct to the main hall. This was brightly painted, with red pillars, white walls, green window gratings, blue and yellow trim. Inside stretched a room like a cavernous tunnel, broken only by huge wooden pillars. Sano followed worshippers whose murmurs echoed to a high, beamed ceiling, alongside an altar that extended the length of the room. Candles and incense sticks burned on stands. Behind these loomed statues of wind and thunder G.o.ds. Above them, rising in eleven tiers like a golden army, stood the famous thousand and one statues of the G.o.ddess Kannon.

The flickering candlelight animated the figures and their serene faces crowned by spiked haloes. Their many hands, which held flowers, knives, skulls, and prayer wheels, seemed to flex and gesture. When Sano emerged into the searing sunlight of the courtyard, he saw three nuns in hemp robes and wicker hats, carrying wooden begging bowls. Kozeri stood in the middle. Surprise and pleasure lit her lovely eyes.

"Good afternoon, Sosakan-sama," she said.

Her presence kindled a dark excitement in Sano. She was a witness with information he wanted, but he mustn't let her inspire dangerous thoughts.

With a shy smile, Kozeri said, "What brings you to Sanjusangendo?"

"I was looking for you." Seeing a blush color Kozeri's cheeks, Sano understood that she'd craved another meeting as much as he; she welcomed his words as a sign of his interest in her. Flattered, Sano condemned himself as a vain, selfish boor. That he should forsake his wife to enjoy a nun's affections! "Actually, I have more questions to ask you," he said, trying to sound businesslike. "About Left Minister Konoe."

"Oh. I see." Although Kozeri kept smiling, disappointment and caution extinguished the light in her face. She inclined her head. "All right."

"Is there someplace we can talk?" Sano asked, surveying the busy temple grounds.

Without meeting his gaze, Kozeri nodded. She said to her companions, "Please excuse me."

"Perhaps we should stay with you," said the older of the two nuns, eyeing Sano shrewdly.

Perhaps you should, thought Sano as his heart jumped at the chance to be alone with Kozeri. But when she told the nuns, "It's all right, I'll be back soon," he let them go. He and Kozeri left the temple and strolled down an avenue bordered by the villas of imperial n.o.bles who could afford second homes outside the palace. Past them moved palanquins carrying courtiers and ladies. Trees swayed, dappling the street with shadows. Kozeri walked with arms clasped around her begging bowl and her head bowed beneath her hat.

"I need to know about the last time you saw Left Minister Konoe," Sano said. "What did he say?"

"Nothing... That is, nothing except the same kind of things he said in his letters." Kozeri's voice was low but steady; perhaps she, too, felt more at ease with an impersonal subject between them. "I haven't had a real conversation with my former husband in years."

Sano sympathized with her unwillingness to discuss a painful subject, but instinct told him that the encounter was important to the case. "Let's go over everything that happened," he said. "Start with the left minister's arrival at Kodai Temple."

The brim of her hat bobbed as Kozeri reluctantly nodded. She kept her eyes on the ground as they walked, perhaps embarra.s.sed by the curiosity of pa.s.sersby who stared at the rare sight of a nun and a samurai walking together. In spite of himself, Sano wished she would look at him.

"It was early morning," Kozeri said. "Another nun and I were sweeping the veranda when he came. He said, 'Kozeri, you're as beautiful as you were when we married fifteen years ago. You never seem to age.' I dropped my broom and backed away, but he came up the steps toward me. He was smiling. I told the other nun to go get help.

"He said, 'I'm so glad to see you. Can't you at least act glad to see me?' " The memory of fear echoed in Kozeri's voice. "Then he started getting angry. He said he knew my heart better than I did, and I should realize that I loved him. He began talking about... things he wanted to do to me." Kozeri lifted a pleading gaze to Sano; her ivory complexion turned pink with shame. "Must I repeat them?"

"No, that's not necessary," Sano said hastily. "What happened next?"

Kozeri sighed. "This is very difficult...."

"I understand," Sano said. "Take your time."

Too late he noticed that they'd left the busy streets and were nearing the river. Willows lined the bank. Their arching boughs formed caves of shadow. Between the gnarled tree trunks, sunlight glinted on the water, but the foliage hid the far bank. The slope of the ground blocked Sano's view of the houses behind him; the ripple of the water drowned out traffic sounds. It seemed as though the city and everyone else in the world had vanished. Sano was about to suggest that they return to Sanjusangendo when Kozeri descended the riverbank and set down her begging bowl.

"The left minister trapped me against the wall. He grabbed my shoulders." She stood with her back pressed to a willow, hands clenched at her sides, pantomiming her story. "Then some priests came and took him away." A sigh of relief cased from her; she ran her hands down her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and hips, as if to a.s.sure herself that Konoe hadn't hurt her.

Watching, Sano felt a shameful burgeoning of desire, and an unwelcome understanding of the left minister's obsession with Kozeri. She seemed so innocent, yet overwhelmingly seductive. Sano tasted danger and excitement. His heart was racing, his breathing quick. He smelled decaying vegetation and the river's marshy scent; mossy ground yielded beneath his feet as he went to stand by Kozeri. He felt the vague, uneasy confusion that he'd experienced during his first interview with her. What was he forgetting to ask?

Kozeri turned toward him. A nervous smile hovered upon her lips. Sano wondered whether she'd brought him here deliberately. Were her feelings as mixed as his own? Her eyes shone fever-bright, and under the loose robe, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s rose and fell with rapid breaths. She looked scared; she also looked like a woman erotically aroused. Sano felt his own body respond.

To hide his distress, he said, "What else happened?"

"That was all." Then a thoughtful look came into Kozeri's eyes. "Wait...I'd forgotten. When the left minister was forced to leave the temple, he shouted at me. I don't remember his exact words, but they went like this: 'Soon you'll realize that you made a terrible mistake by leaving me. I'm on the verge of the greatest accomplishment of my life. Soon every man shall do my bidding, every woman desire my favor. You shall be so impressed that you'll return to me at last!'

"What do you think he meant?" Sano asked, intrigued.

"He always wanted to be imperial prime minister," Kozeri said. "I a.s.sumed that he was finally going to get the post."

A promotion would have given him greater prestige at court, but Sano believed Konoe had learned the murderer's secret and planned to apply it toward a different sort of 'accomplishment' that would win him power, wealth, and Kozeri's esteem. Yet once again, the sense of a gap in the case bothered Sano, although Chamberlain Yanagisawa had supplied much of the missing information.

Kozeri stood watching him. Her hand wandered up to pat her lips, then clasp her throat. Her sensual habit of caressing herself provoked in Sano an almost irresistible urge to touch her. "The other nuns will be wondering what happened to me," she said.

Sano noticed that the afternoon sun had descended in the sky, sheening the river with bronze. The shadows under the willows had deepened. Above the water's incessant rush hummed a prenocturnal chorus of insects. Sano had the evidence he'd come for; he should go back to the Imperial Palace and finish his inquiries, or find out what had come of Chamberlain Yanagisawa's raid on Lord Ibe's estate.

"Yes," he said, "we should go."

Yet neither he nor Kozeri moved. Her eyes filled with panicky antic.i.p.ation. Go on and have her, whispered a demon inside Sano. Other men do this all the time; there's no need to feel guilty. Reiko doesn't have to know. Sano walked slowly toward Kozeri. She gave a frightened whimper, but made no effort to stop him. Now he stood close enough to hear her breathing in sharp hisses and see the saliva gleam on her quivering lips. His hands lifted. This was wrong. He loved Reiko, whom he'd already hurt badly by faking his death. He ached with his need for Kozeri.

Hands poised above her shoulders and their faces almost touching, Sano saw his inner turmoil reflected in her eyes. As a nun, she would have taken a vow of celibacy, but she was a sensual woman who'd lived fifteen years without a man. Sano could see her trembling with repressed hunger. Forcing himself to think of Reiko, he only realized a disturbing truth about his nature. A part of him was drawn to women with an aura of tragedy, whose spirits carried the same veins of darkness as his own.

Women like Aoi, the ninja spy he'd fallen in love with during his first case as the shogun's investigator.

And Sano knew that Reiko, with her bright personality, could never quite satisfy the dark part of him, no matter how much they loved each other.

Suddenly Kozeri moaned, a sound of utter, pa.s.sionate submission. Tilting her head, she laid her cheek on Sano's hand, eyes closed and lips parted. The feel of her hot, moist skin thrilled Sano. With his other hand he stroked the nape of her neck, that most erotic visible part of a woman's body. Lefting his fingers trail slowly down Kozeri's back, he drew her closer to him.

She moaned louder and pressed herself against him. For a moment, Sano swooned with pleasure. Then horror jolted him from dazed l.u.s.t and into awareness that he'd taken the first step toward forbidden s.e.x. Now his desire filled him with revulsion. With an anguished cry, he pulled away from Kozeri.

She stared in surprise. "What's wrong?"

Raising his hands in a gesture of helpless apology, Sano shook his head and said, "I'm sorry."

"Don't you want me?" Tears welled in Kozeri's eyes.

"I can't do this," Sano said. Turning, he fled as if pursued by an invading army.

25.

At Kodai Temple, the afternoon had pa.s.sed in its unvarying routine of prayers and ch.o.r.es; the nuns had returned from begging in the city, and evening rites had begun. While bells tolled across Miyako, the setting sun poured fiery light through the windows of the convent dormitory. There knelt the nuns, heads shaven, completely naked. In three rows, firm young bodies alternated with those of older women with sagging flesh. They faced the abbess, who sat upon a platform at the front of the room.

"Breathe deeply," intoned the abbess. She sucked air through her mouth. "In. Out. Gather the energy within you."

At her place in the middle row, Kozeri inhaled the musky smell of the women whose breaths echoed her own. She tried to let her mind drift and feel the energy kindle inside her. For fifteen years she'd practiced this exercise, designed to focus her mental power and bring spiritual enlightenment. Usually she slipped into a trance easily, but tonight the required concentration evaded her. The shogun's sosakan had disturbed her inner harmony. Scenes from the past invaded the darkness behind her closed eyelids.

She saw the garden of her family's mansion, the secluded paradise of her youth. Again she ran laughing through the spring rains, hot summers, autumn leaves, and winter snows with her favorite cousin and playmate, Lord Ryozen. As the years pa.s.sed, Kozeri became a beautiful young woman, Ryozen a handsome youth; friendship evolved into romance. Their families approved of the match, which would strengthen the connection between two n.o.ble clans. At age fifteen, Kozeri and Ryozen knelt before the Shinto priest and sipped the ritual three wedding cups of sake.