The Incense Game si-16

by Laura Joh Rowland

  For a teacher to confide in a pupil went against custom. For a commoner to impose her problems on a high-ranking samurai employer did, too. “Do you know if she had any enemies?”

  Ogyu shook his head. “I would assume that if she did, they were people I don’t know. We didn’t move in the same circles.”

  “What about her other pupils? Did you meet them?”

  “No. I took private lessons. Nobody else was there.”

  Sano thought of Priest Ryuko. Ogyu certainly knew him. Sano had seen the two talking at ceremonies. Maybe Ogyu didn’t know that the priest had numbered among Usugumo’s pupils. Sano wondered what, if anything, the connection between the two men signified. But it didn’t appear that Ogyu would have met Lord Hosokawa’s daughters.

  “Wait.” Ogyu raised his gloved finger, which was short and thick like his body. “There was someone else there. I just remembered. Usugumo’s apprentice. He helped her prepare for the lessons. A young man named Korin.”

  This was the second time the apprentice had cropped up. Sano hoped Detective Marume would find him. He could be a good witness, if not a suspect. Right now Sano could do with either. It appeared that he wouldn’t get much of worth from Minister Ogyu-at least not as long as he maintained the pretense that Ogyu was just assisting with a future police inquiry and not under suspicion.

  “Thank you for your time,” Sano said. “I’ll send some workers and funds your way as soon as they’re available.”

  “Thank you. I hope the police can find out who killed Usugumo. She was a fine woman who didn’t deserve to die.” Again, Ogyu spoke with sincerity.

  Sano wondered if those opaque eyes saw straight through him. Leaving the courtyard, he glanced at Lady Ogyu’s tent. She must have overheard his whole conversation with Minister Ogyu. Did her interest in it extend beyond a wife’s nosiness about her husband’s affairs? Although tempted to question her, Sano didn’t want to risk seeming too eager for information and causing the wrong people-namely Ienobu and the shogun-to get wind of it and ask why. Sano would have to wait to satisfy his curiosity until after Reiko talked with Lady Ogyu.

  17

  When Hirata left Sano’s estate, he knew he should begin questioning people who were associated with Priest Ryuko and Minister Ogyu, eliciting information that would indicate whether one of them was the murderer. He knew that with so many people displaced, it would take a while to locate witnesses, and he would lose time tracing people who turned out to have died in the earthquake. But he couldn’t get out of the ritual. If he reneged on his promise, Tahara, Kitano, and Deguchi would force him to participate. Recalling the moment they’d levitated the house out of the ground, he feared them more than ever, and he needed to arm himself with knowledge before he saw them again.

  Hirata rode through the falling snow along desolate, rubble-strewn streets to the huge camp in Nihonbashi. He paused on its edge, gazing at the tents, concentrating on the auras given off by the people. They conveyed so much pain, fear, and grief that he wanted to suppress his perception, but he was looking for someone, and this was the quickest method.

  He visited three other camps before he found the men at one near the Sumida River. In the twilight, bonfires colored the falling snowflakes orange. The men had pitched their tent at the edge of the camp. Their tent was made of two lattice partitions leaned together and covered with tatami mats. Blankets hung over its ends. Smoke tendrils rose from an opening on top. It radiated a powerful, calm aura spangled with cheer, which was familiar to Hirata. He also perceived another aura he’d never encountered before, equally powerful, humorous. Hirata cautiously approached.

  “Greetings, Hirata- san,” called a male voice from within.

  There was no use sneaking up on his fellow mystic martial artists. Hirata lifted the blanket. Warmth heated his face. He smelled the sour tang of pickled cabbage and radish and the reek of salted fish. “Hello, Iseki- san.”

  An oil lamp illuminated two kneeling men. One held a bowl and chopsticks. The other lifted a teapot off a brazier. He was in his seventies, his face wrinkled like crumpled paper. He had only one arm.

  “Join us,” he said

  Hirata squeezed himself into the tent’s small space, amid various cloth-wrapped bundles. He accepted a bowl of tea that Iseki deftly poured with his single hand. “I’m glad to see you’re alive. I went to your barbershop, but it was in ruins.”

  The barbershop had been a favorite haunt of mystic martial artists, located north of the Nihonbashi Bridge near the center of the national messenger system, from which the government dispatched runners to carry documents between cities. Iseki the barber had gleaned the latest news from the messengers and given it to his customers. The earthquake had halted the messenger system, which had only just resumed with limited service, and the mystic martial artists had lost their gathering place.

  Iseki grinned and raised his tea bowl to Hirata. “I’m tough. An earthquake wrecked my barbershop. An earthquake crushed my arm and ended my fighting days. Neither of them managed to kill me, though.”

  “Are you going to introduce me to your friend?” Hirata asked.

  “Oh, pardon my bad manners. This is Onodera.”

  Hirata exchanged polite bows and greetings with the man, who was in his forties but fit and muscular. Onodera wore a round black skullcap, a thigh-length kimono and loose breeches printed with arcane symbols, cloth leggings, and straw sandals. A short sword hung from the sash around his waist. Beside him was a wooden chest, its shoulder harness decorated with orange bobbles. Costume and equipment marked him as a yamabushi — an itinerant priest from a sect that blended Buddhism, Shinto religion, and Chinese magic.

  “I’ve heard of you,” he told Hirata. He had a round face with eyes that disappeared into slits as he smiled. “The best fighter in Edo.”

  Modestly declining the praise, Hirata knew who the best fighters in Edo really were, although he’d yet to see them strike a single blow. “I’ve heard of you, too. You protect villages from bandit gangs.”

  “None other,” Onodera said cheerfully.

  “What brings you here?”

  “I was passing through Edo when the earthquake hit,” Onodera said. “I figured I would stay and see if I could help.”

  “Well, I’m glad to find you and Iseki- san,” Hirata said, “because I need your help.” He spoke reluctantly because it felt weak and shameful. But he didn’t know what else to do.

  “Who do you want me to fight?” Onodera put down his bowl, ready to dash into battle.

  “No one.” At least not yet. “It’s information I need.”

  “Information about what?”

  Hirata hesitated, recalling his oath of silence to the secret society. But asking about the other members didn’t equal telling on them. “Three mystic martial artists. Their names are Tahara, Kitano, and Deguchi.”

  Onodera’s eyes opened up as the smile left his face.

  “You asked me about them, when was it, last year?” Iseki said. “Didn’t I tell you to stay away from them?”

  “I should have listened,” Hirata said.

  Iseki frowned, refilling Hirata’s tea bowl, adding a splash from a jar of sake.

  Hirata drank. The tea was spicy and robust, the liquor eye-wateringly potent. “Do you know them?” he asked Onodera.

  “I’ve never laid eyes on them, let alone seen them in action. But I’ve heard that they were Ozuno’s favorite disciples. Which means they have to be among the best martial artists who ever lived.”

  Hirata felt a pang of jealousy. He’d thought he was Ozuno’s favorite. But he should have known better as soon as he’d met the three and learned Ozuno had been their mentor. “Is there anybody you know of who could tell me more?”

  “A monk named Fuwa,” Onodera said. “He used to go around with them.”

  “Where can I find him?” Hirata asked eagerly.

  “Last I heard, he was living in Chiba.”

  Hirata’s heart sank. The town of Chiba was a d
ay’s journey from Edo. He could never make it there and back before the ritual.

  Like every other neighborhood in town, the Hibiya administrative district, south of Edo Castle, had been severely damaged by the earthquake. Barriers made of logs, scrap wood, and piled stones enclosed the sites of the mansions where the city’s high officials had once lived and worked. Above the barriers Reiko could see the tops of tents that housed residents who had nowhere else to stay. Reiko called to her bearers to stop by a gate with shiny copper crests that looked incongruous remounted on beams made of cut logs. The sentries recognized her and let her in the gate. Walking toward the tents, Reiko heard muffled voices but saw no one.

  “Grandmother?” she called.

  A flap on one tent opened. A tiny old woman peered out. Bundled up from neck to toe, her body resembled a fat pile of quilts, but her head was as precisely modeled as that of a porcelain doll. Her silver hair was tied in a sleek knot, every hair oiled in place. Although she was past seventy, her skin was unlined; only her sagging jowls betrayed her age. She had the same delicate features and large, almond-shaped eyes as Reiko. Whenever Reiko saw her, she saw how she herself would look in the future, if she lived that long.

  “What are you doing here?” her grandmother demanded. Her voice was hoarsened by the years but had nary a quaver.

  “I came to see you, Grandmother,” Reiko said, bowing. She needed the old woman’s help with the investigation, but she was loath to ask.

  “Dear me, is it New Year’s Day again?”

  “Not yet.”

  “And here I thought I was getting senile. New Year’s Day is the only time you ever come-when you bring your husband and children for your annual visit.”

  Reiko felt the sting of rebuke, followed by the flare of temper that her grandmother never failed to provoke. “You’ve always made it clear that I’m not welcome.”

  “Why would you be?” Disapproval crossed the old woman’s face. “You’re the most impertinent, unladylike creature I’ve had the misfortune to know.”

  Their exchanges always went like this. Even when Reiko was a child, her grandmother never had a kind word for her, only criticism, scolding, and slaps, often for no apparent reason. At first Reiko had wept because her feelings were hurt and tried harder to please her grandmother. When she discovered that nothing she did was good enough, she’d decided to hate the mean old woman. Not until she was ten did she learn why her grandmother didn’t like her. She’d overheard a conversation between her grandmother and a visitor. Standing outside the room where they chatted, Reiko had listened to her grandmother say, “That brat killed her mother! I wish she’d never been born! If she hadn’t, my daughter would still be alive.”

  Reiko had realized that her grandmother blamed her for her mother’s death during childbirth. How unfair that she would be hated for something that wasn’t her fault! The experience was one reason she was passionate about justice. She couldn’t bear to see innocent people wrongly condemned, or those guilty of harming others escape without punishment. She’d exercised her passion while observing the trials her father conducted and discussing them with him afterward, and while helping Sano with his investigations. But it seemed she could never set things right with the person who’d taught her the pain of injustice.

  “Won’t you ever forgive me?” she asked.

  “Forgive you for what?” Her grandmother feigned puzzlement. The hostility in her eyes said she knew exactly what Reiko meant. “For running wild when you were young, as if you were a boy instead of a girl? Riding horses and sword-fighting in the streets?” She snorted. “I can’t imagine what your father was thinking.”

  He’d never held her mother’s death against her, Reiko knew. Magistrate Ueda had given her, his only child, so much love that she’d never missed having a mother. He’d rewarded her intelligence, strength, and courage with the education usually reserved for sons. Of course, her unconventional upbringing had worsened her relationship with her grandmother.

  “That was a long time ago,” Reiko said.

  “Oh, well, then. Should I forgive you for defying me when I tried to arrange a match for you?”

  When Reiko had reached a marriageable age, her grandmother had obtained proposals from rich, important men. Reiko had refused them. Not only had she thought them too old, unattractive, and stuffy; she’d dreaded being trapped in the circumscribed existence of married women of her class. She’d held out until her father had insisted she attend the miai where she’d met Sano. She’d accepted Sano because he was young and handsome, and she’d heard of his exciting exploits. She’d gambled that he would be less conventional and more amenable to letting her do as she pleased than her other suitors, and she’d won.

  “My husband is the shogun’s chamberlain,” Reiko said. “You couldn’t have asked for anyone higher than that.”

  “I couldn’t have asked for anyone who gets in more trouble,” her grandmother retorted. Little that happened in the regime escaped her; she had sons, grandsons, and other relatives in high places, whom she badgered into telling her everything.

  “We have two beautiful children,” Reiko said, because she hadn’t quite lost the habit of trying to show herself to her grandmother in a positive light. And another on the way.

  “A pity, the way you’re raising them,” the old woman grumbled. “You’re too easy on them. I worry that they’ll go bad.”

  Another reason that Reiko didn’t come more often was that her grandmother treated Masahiro and Akiko the same way she treated Reiko. Her temper ready to boil over, Reiko changed the subject. “Why are you still living in this tent, Grandmother?”

  “Where else would I live?”

  “I invited you to come and stay with me.” Although Reiko’s house was crowded, she could fit in one more person.

  Her grandmother huffed. “I’m too old-fashioned for your modern home.” That was a dig at Reiko’s habit of leaving domesticity behind to do detective work for Sano. Her grandmother didn’t approve of women who meddled in men’s business. “I’d rather stay here. This is my home. Besides, who will keep an eye on things if I leave?”

  Reiko watched the snow sift from the sky. She was freezing. “Can I come in?”

  “Oh, all right.”

  The tent was crammed with lacquer chests and iron trunks. Grandmother seated herself on a futon in the center. Reiko knelt on the tatami that covered the earth. A brazier filled the tent with smoky heat. While her grandmother made tea, Reiko noticed a pile of unfurled scrolls covered with black calligraphy and red government seals, and a portable writing desk, its open lid revealing papers scribbled with notes.

  “What is that?” Reiko asked.

  Her grandmother slammed the desk shut and pushed the scrolls behind a trunk. “Just some things I’m doing for your uncles.”

  Reiko’s uncles worked for the government. “It seems I’m not the only woman in our family who meddles in men’s business,” Reiko murmured.

  “What did you say?” her grandmother said sharply.

  “Nothing.” Reiko couldn’t afford to antagonize the old woman any further.

  “What’s the real reason you came?” She handed Reiko a bowl of tea. “Did you want to see if I was still alive? Well, too bad for you.”

  Reiko sipped tea, warmed her hands, and braced herself for another fight. “I need an introduction to the wife of Minister Ogyu who runs the shogun’s Confucian academy.” Social custom prohibited calling on a stranger without an introduction from a mutual acquaintance, and Reiko didn’t want to barge in on Lady Ogyu and make her suspicious. She didn’t have the excuse of a funeral and a political connection, as she’d had with the Hosokawa women.

  “Who does your husband think she killed?”

  “No one,” Reiko said, taken aback. “This isn’t for an investigation.”

  “Spare me.” Her grandmother flicked a slender, elegant hand at Reiko. “Why else would you want to meet such a dull little woman? Why would you be interested in anyone
except those murderers that you like to hobnob with?”

  “This is important. I can’t tell you why.” Reiko put on her most humble, conciliatory manner. “Please. I need your help.”

  The old woman smiled, gratified. “Lady Ogyu is my sister-in-law’s great-niece. But I won’t introduce you to her unless you tell me what this is all about.”

  “Very well. But you must promise me that you won’t pass it on.”

  “I’ll take it to my grave, which probably won’t happen soon enough for your liking.”

  “There has been a murder,” Reiko admitted. “Lady Ogyu is a potential witness. She can’t be allowed to know that I’m investigating her for my husband.”

  “Who was murdered?” The old woman leaned forward, rapacious in her curiosity.

  “A woman named Usugumo. She was an incense teacher.”

  Her grandmother uttered a scornful sound. “You’re holding out on me, child. Your husband wouldn’t bother investigating the death of one commoner, not when he’s got his hands full with earthquake problems and keeping the shogun happy. Now let’s have it!”

  Reiko had no choice but to part with more information. “The other victims were Lord Hosokawa’s daughters.”

  Shock wiped the crankiness off the old woman’s face. “Great Buddha! Now I understand. Lord Hosokawa is a very powerful daimyo. He could make trouble for the Tokugawa regime. I can imagine how badly he wants his children avenged. If your husband doesn’t find out who killed them, Lord Hosokawa could even decide to start a war.”

  Her view of the situation was so astute that Reiko blinked.

  “I’ll write a letter to Lady Ogyu, saying that I’m sending you to see how she fared during the earthquake, so that you can report back to me. That should do.” The old woman ground ink, dipped her brush, and wrote on thick white rice paper, stamped the finished letter with her signature seal, and rolled it into a lacquer scroll container. When Reiko put out her hand for it, she held it out of reach. “If I give you this, you must tell me how the investigation turns out.”