6
“You’re lying! My wife and Lord Mori were never lovers!” Sano had forced himself to hear Lady Mori’s tale until the end, but he could no longer hold back his violent denials. “The child she’s carrying isn’t his. And neither is our son!”
He didn’t believe a word she’d said. This was slander of the most outrageous kind. But his inner voice whispered that he must objectively consider each witness’s statement even if it incriminated his wife.
“I apologize for giving you offense, but I have told you the truth,” Lady Mori said sadly. “I swear on my honor.”
“Your honor is worth nothing in this case,” Sano retorted, for here at last was another suspect besides Reiko. “According to your story, you were at your husband’s private chambers last night.”
Lady Mori visibly braced herself against him. “Yes.”
“You saw my wife on the veranda, spying through the window on Lord Mori.”
“No. I was the one spying,” Lady Mori said, nervous but insistent. “She was inside, with him, just as I described.”
Sano countered her with Reiko’s version of events: “You and my wife were friends. That night you invited her to dinner. You had a party.”
Frosty politeness stiffened Lady Mori’s features. “There was no party. And she was not my friend, she was my husband’s mistress. It was he who invited her here.”
Sano speculated on what might have happened that Reiko had been unaware of. “You suspected that she had an ulterior motive for befriending you. When she left the party, you followed her. You watched her watching your husband. Did you think she was spying on him for me, for political reasons?”
Lady Mori shook her head. “I watched her seduce him. I heard her threaten to kill him.”
“Maybe she had too much to drink at your party.” Sano didn’t know how much forethought had gone into framing Reiko, but he was acting on the assumption that she had been framed, and Lady Mori was looking to be the culprit. “You stabbed and castrated your husband while he was asleep. You arranged Lady Reiko to look as if she’d done it.”
“No! That’s not how it was!” Lady Mori cried in horror. “I loved my husband. I would never have hurt him. And I never touched your wife. She murdered him.”
Sano lost his temper because even though her story was ludicrous, many people might believe it. Some would welcome a chance to hurt him by persecuting Reiko. “Don’t lie to me!” he shouted. “I want to know what really happened.”
He seized Lady Mori, yanked her to her feet, and grasped her shoulders. She whimpered in protest. Her attendants gasped in horror at seeing their mistress treated as a common criminal. Hirata moved to restrain Sano.
“Honorable Chamberlain,” he warned.
Sano ordinarily didn’t believe in using force on suspects because it too often produced false confessions and he disliked abusing his power. He hated to intimidate a helpless woman. But he couldn’t let Lady Mori spread her slander about his wife. Not only could it doom Reiko, but it could destroy him. Sano remembered his talk with General Isogai and the two elders. The suspicion that someone connected to him had murdered one of Lord Matsudaira’s chief allies was trouble of the kind they’d warned him to avoid.
“Tell me the truth!” he demanded, shaking Lady Mori.
Her head snapped back and forth; she sobbed in terror. But she cried, “I did!”
She seemed to believe her own lies. That would make them sound convincing to anyone she told. Sano had to make her recant. “You killed your husband. You framed my wife. Confess!”
“No! Please don’t hurt me!”
Anger consumed Sano. He hated Lady Mori for trying to hurt Reiko. He was furious at Reiko for putting him and herself in this disastrous situation. Lady Mori was a convenient target, and he drew back his fist to strike her.
Hirata caught his arm. “Don’t!”
Her attendants shrieked. Marume and Fukida pulled Sano away from Lady Mori. She dissolved to the floor in a fit of tears. The women surrounded her, comforting her. Sano shook off his men. He breathed hard, appalled by his own behavior. Less than an hour into this investigation, and he’d lost control. After so many murder cases, he should be able to discipline himself. But his wife hadn’t been the primary suspect in those other cases. He’d not had to prove her innocence while other suspects heaped guilt upon her.
An angry male voice demanded, “What have you done to my mother?”
Sano turned and saw a samurai at the door. He was tall and lithe, in his mid-twenties, dressed in a cloak damp with rain, his two swords at his waist. His face was strikingly handsome, with sensitive features shadowed by consternation. Lady Mori rose, ran to him, and wept against his chest. He focused his dark, brooding eyes on Sano.
“Honorable Chamberlain. May I ask what’s going on?”
“You must be Enju,” said Sano.
“Yes.” Lord Mori’s adopted son waited in silence for Sano to answer his question. Despite his mother’s description of the lively, young flirt on the pleasure boat, he was evidently a person of few words. Long, thick eyelashes veiled his gaze.
“Your father has been murdered,” Sano said.
“So I’ve heard.”
“Where have you been?”
“On business in Osaka. I just arrived home.”
Lady Mori cried, “The chamberlain thinks I did it!”
Enju frowned at Sano. “That’s not what Akera-san told me. He says your wife killed my father.”
“She did! Please make him understand that I’m innocent,” Lady Mori said, clinging to Enju.
“On what grounds do you accuse my mother?” Enju asked.
“She had the opportunity to murder your father and frame my wife,” Sano said.
“Excuse me, but have you given her a chance to tell her own version of events?” A current of hostility ran beneath Enju’s calm voice.
“Yes indeed.” Sano felt his temper rising again. “She has made a ridiculous claim that my wife was Lord Mori’s mistress and killed him during a lover’s quarrel.” Sano briefly explained.
“There you have it, then.”
Sano noted that Enju had remarkable assurance for so young a man addressing a high official. He seemed undisturbed by Lord Mori’s death, and although he acted willing to blame Reiko, he hadn’t actually claimed that his mother was innocent. This struck Sano as odd.
“How do you know what happened last night?” Sano asked. “By your own admission, you weren’t here.”
Calculation hooded Enju’s expression. “I saw my father cavorting with your wife often enough. It was no secret.” To anyone but you, said his tone. He shrugged. “Their affair and my mother’s attempt to stop it obviously drove Lady Reiko to murder.”
It sounded to Sano as if the young man had decided to confirm Lady Mori’s damning story about Reiko for some reason other than that he believed it. But Enju was the kind of cool, self-possessed witness who would be hard to shake. Sano knew that mother and son might convince too many people that Reiko was guilty. Yet Enju’s behavior was suspicious, and he represented another chance for Sano to exonerate her.
“Someone was obviously driven to murder, but not my wife,” Sano said. “I understand that you’re Lord Mori’s heir.”
“That’s correct.”
“And now that he’s dead, you inherit his title and his wealth,” Sano continued. “You’ll govern his provinces and command all his retainers.”
“Yes.” Caution narrowed Enju’s gaze.
“In other words, you’re the person who benefits the most from his death.”
Lady Mori gasped. “Are you accusing my son of murder?” She beheld Sano with shocked disbelief that turned to outrage. “He would never commit such a sin against filial piety. He loved his father!”
“Calm yourself, Mother. He can’t pin the blame on me.” Unfazed, Enju countered Sano’s accusation: “I didn’t kill Lord Mori. He adopted me, he educated me, he made me the man I am. I would have killed myse
lf before I ever hurt him.”
“According to your mother, he abandoned you as well as her for a mistress and her child,” Sano said. “If she’s telling the truth, you had that reason to want him gone, in addition to the fact that you would inherit his estate.”
Not only were mother and son in league to protect each other by lying about Reiko, but maybe they’d conspired to rid themselves of Lord Mori.
Enju smiled, conveying pity for Sano. “The fact is that I couldn’t have killed him. I’ve been traveling for the past four days. My attendants will verify that they spent last night with me in Totsuka.” This was a village on the Tokaido, the highway that connected Edo to points west. “They’ll verify that we rode home this morning.”
His attendants would say whatever he wanted, Sano didn’t doubt. Sano sensed unrevealed dimensions in the young man, but for now Enju had an alibi. Sano felt an urge to beat Enju until his composure shattered and the truth came out of him. One thing that prevented Sano was the knowledge that if he started beating Enju, he might not be able to stop, and killing one of the other suspects would do Reiko no good.
A second was that he had other issues to take up with Enju and Lady Mori; namely, the missing boy and what Reiko had observed in Lord Mori’s bedchamber prior to his death.
One of Sano’s guards appeared in the doorway. “Pardon me, Honorable Chamberlain, but there’s a message from the shogun and Lord Matsudaira. They want to see you in the palace immediately.”
Sano rode toward Edo Castle with Hirata and his entourage. The rain had started up again, and their horses’ hooves splashed in puddles along the avenue through the daimyo district. Pedestrians were few. The sentries hid in their booths outside the estates; dripping banners printed with clan crests sagged over the portals. The castle was a massive gray blur towering behind a waterfall.
“What do you think Lord Matsudaira wants?” Hirata asked.
“Probably the usual business,” Sano said.
Lord Matsudaira summoned him at least once a day, to extract reassurances that the government was running smoothly and learn whether Sano had heard of any new plots against him. But Sano had an uneasy feeling about this particular summons.
He recalled a question that had occurred to him when Hirata had brought Reiko home but he hadn’t had a chance to ask. “How did you happen to be at Lord Mori’s estate this morning?”
The high stone walls of Edo Castle loomed in the near distance. Soldiers in the guard house atop the main gate had spotted Sano’s procession; they hurried out to let it inside.
“It’s a long story,” Hirata said.
“I’ll make time to hear it,” Sano said, hoping that Hirata’s story could provide a different perspective on the murder, counteract Lady Mori’s and Enju’s statements, and help Reiko.
7
The Disciple’s Tale
GENROKU YEAR 11, MONTH 2(MARCH 1698)
Dawn lit the mist that shrouded the Yoshino Mountains, a fifteen-day journey west of Edo. Steps cut into a cliff led up to a remote temple that was home to a small Buddhist sect. The temple bell echoed across the pine forests. Eagles soared above the pagoda whose tiered roof vanished into the sky. Inside the temple precinct, Hirata circled an expanse of bare ground. Wearing a white jacket and trousers, his feet bare, he raised his hands in preparation for combat.
Opposite him circled his martial arts teacher. Ozuno, an itinerant priest, had a stern, weathered face; his gray hair was topped by a round, black skull cap. He wore a tattered kimono, loose breeches, cloth leggings, and frayed straw sandals. His lame right leg, his eighty years, and his unkempt appearance disguised his identity as an expert in the mystic martial art of dim-mak and a member of the secret society that had preserved it for four centuries.
Hirata had met Ozuno during a murder investigation and persuaded Ozuno to take him as a disciple. Ozuno had made Hirata commit to an indefinite period of training, then swear not to reveal that he was a pupil. The ancients who’d invented dim-mak meant for it to be used honorably, in self-defense and in battle, but they feared that it would be used for evil purposes. Hence, they passed down their knowledge to only a few trusted students. Hirata was forbidden to use dim-mak except in cases of extreme emergency, or to reveal the techniques to anyone except his own disciples someday. Hirata had agreed, because his future depended on mastering them.
His left thigh had been seriously wounded in the line of duty four years ago. Once an expert fighter, he’d become a cripple. He wanted more than anything to regain his strength and prowess, his manhood and honor. This training was his only hope. But it had proved to be more than he’d bargained for.
First had come months of scholarly study. “Why do I need to learn about medicine and anatomy?” Hirata had asked Ozuno. “I’m not training to become a physician.”
“You need to know the vulnerable points on the human body,” Ozuno had explained in his gruff, resonant voice. “The points are the same as those used by physicians during acupuncture. They’re located on junctions along nerve pathways that connect vital organs. Memorize them, and don’t argue.”
Hirata looked ahead to lessons on the secret combat techniques. But when they came, they brought another unpleasant surprise: Dim-mak was the most incomprehensible, vexatious thing he’d ever attempted.
Now, as he and Ozuno faced off, Ozuno said, “You’re not using the secret breathing technique. In order to build and channel your inner forces, you must get the maximum air through every part of your body. But you are panting like a dog in summer. You haven’t been doing your breathing exercises.”
Hirata hated those. The ritual of sucking in and expelling air for hours on end was a tedious bore.
“And you’re as tense as if someone poked a stick up your rear end,” Ozuno said. “Relax! When your muscles are tense, they contract. They pull your strikes back toward you and decrease their power.” His eyes narrowed in disapproval. “You haven’t been practicing meditation enough.”
“Yes, I have,” Hirata fibbed.He also hated meditation, which seemed like sitting and doing nothing. In the past, he’d been a good fighter without wasting time on it.
“Don’t resist that which you do not enjoy,” Ozuno said. “Meditation is necessary to quiet the mind so you can forge a link with the cosmos and the infinite knowledge embodied there. Only then can you know the proper actions to take during combat. Otherwise you will fall prey to insecurity and confusion and lose the battle. You will be unable to tap your spiritual energy. I can tell mat’s the case with you, because I can hardly feel your shield.”
The shield was the subtle energy field that surrounded all things. It sprang from a person’s thoughts as well as bodily processes. “There’s too much chaos in your mind,” Ozuno said. “Your shield is so weak that you can’t detect the energy from other people’s shields and sense threats from them.”
“I can feel yours,” Hirata said. Ozuno’s shield gave off a mighty thrum, like lightning about to strike. Hirata braced himself for combat.
Ozuno sneered. “You’re too anxious to beat me. You persist in acting as if your opponent is your adversary. Remember that he’s not; he’s your partner in your quest for victory. Without him, you can’t win. Merge your energy with mine. Don’t oppose it.”
Hirata had always struggled with this concept of oneness with his opponent. How, in a real battle, could he be partners with someone when they were trying to kill each other?
“We’ll practice the no-hit technique,” Ozuno said.
That entailed projecting bursts of spiritual energy that impacted the opponent’s shield and convinced him that he was being hit even though no physical contact occurred. An expert could drive an opponent to the ground without touching him. Hirata raised his palm at Ozuno.
The priest burst out laughing. “You look like you’re constipated. Are you even trying to project your energy?”
“I am,” Hirata said, nettled by the constant, insulting criticism that he’d endured from Ozuno for
three years.
“Then stop my attack.”
Ozuno lashed out. Hirata willed his energy at Ozuno’s fist. It should have arrested Ozuno’s movement, but instead the blow landed squarely in Hirata’s stomach. The breath whooshed out of Hirata. He doubled over, gasping.
“Merciful gods, what a sorry excuse for a pupil you are!” Ozuno began boxing his ears.
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