The Incense Game si-16

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “That’s the secret? That Minister Ogyu has an older sister?” Reiko couldn’t imagine why this fact would be worth killing to hide.

  “It wasn’t his sister,” Kasane said. “He was his parents’ only child.”

  “What?” Reiko was thoroughly confused. “You just said his mother gave birth to a-”

  “Listen and you’ll understand.” The sudden sharpness of Kasane’s voice silenced Reiko. “When Lady Ogyu saw that she had a daughter instead of a son, she was very upset. She cried so loud that her husband came to see what was the matter. When he saw the baby girl, he was disappointed. He told me to take her into the next room. I washed her while I listened to him trying to comfort Lady Ogyu. She said, ‘I’ll never be able to have another baby! This was my only chance, and I’ve let you down!’

  “After a while, she got quiet. I wrapped up the baby and went to listen at the door.” Kasane craned her neck. Her arms curved around the shape of the infant. “Lady Ogyu said, ‘The baby doesn’t have to be a girl. We can raise it as a boy. To be your son. Your heir.’”

  Now Reiko understood. Now shock hit her so hard that she fell forward. She caught herself with her hands. Palms splayed on the floor, mouth open, she stared.

  The baby wasn’t Minister Ogyu’s sister; it was him.

  That was his secret: He’d been born female.

  Never would Reiko have guessed. She’d thought his secret would turn out to be embezzlement, treason, or even murder, the usual vices. Instead, it was a simple fact of nature, a circumstance beyond his control.

  “How could he and his parents get away with it?” Reiko exclaimed, even though they obviously had. In retrospect, she saw the signs she’d missed: Minster Ogyu’s soft, pudgy figure; his voice that sounded falsely deep; his face that was unnaturally smooth except for those few whiskers-all had hinted at his true sex. But such a deception was unheard of. Minister Ogyu had not only fooled everyone into believing he was male; he’d attained a coveted position in the government.

  “That’s what Master Ogyu asked his wife. She said, ‘We’ll say I gave birth to a boy. Nobody knows differently except us.’ He said, ‘Very well.’ Then the baby started to cry. They looked up and saw me.”

  The scene was vivid in Reiko’s mind: The woman on the bloodstained bed, plotting with her husband; the shocked midwife standing in the doorway holding the baby. “You were the only witness to the baby’s birth.”

  “They asked me to stay and be the baby’s nursemaid. They offered me a lot of money, and something I didn’t know I wanted until then.” Kasane smiled, reliving the surprise she’d felt. “The chance to bring up a child instead of walking away after I’d delivered it. So I stayed.”

  Reiko could still hardly believe what she’d heard. “But why would they go to such lengths? Couldn’t Minister Ogyu’s father have just adopted a boy?” That was the custom for men who lacked male offspring. The shogun himself would follow it unless he fathered a son, or as soon as he gave up his hope that it was possible. An adopted heir had all the rights and status of a sired one. “Or had one by a concubine?”

  “Lady Ogyu didn’t want him to,” Kasane said. “She wanted to be the mother of his heir. She couldn’t stand the thought of having to treat another woman’s child as the son of the family. And her will was stronger than her husband’s. He did what she wanted.”

  “But how could they have turned a girl into a boy?” It seemed impossible. Since birth, Masahiro had been so masculine, and Akiko so feminine, that Reiko couldn’t have imagined trying to switch their sexes.

  “It was hard,” Kasane admitted. “Especially for my poor young master. His parents gave him medicine made from goat weed and dong quai to make him masculine and grow whiskers. They were always after him to eat more and get bigger. To talk and act like a boy. To learn everything he would need to know as a man. He had terrible headaches.” She sighed regretfully. “I nursed him as best I could, but not even my potions could take away the pain.”

  Reiko couldn’t entirely pity Minister Ogyu. He’d reaped benefits that most women would never have-an education, financial independence, an outlet for his talents, freedom. “Didn’t anyone notice he was different from other boys?”

  “My young master was a good, dutiful child. He worked hard at it,” Kasane said. Reiko belatedly noticed that she always referred to Ogyu with male pronouns. She had completely accepted him as a boy. Reiko herself couldn’t help thinking of him as male, even now that she knew better. “He was smart, too. Good at his lessons. And his parents kept him away from people who might find him out. Like other children. No martial arts practice. And they hired tutors who had their heads up in the clouds, who didn’t notice they were teaching a girl.”

  Minister Ogyu would have made a good actor, Reiko thought. Although fooling the shogun was no great feat, Ogyu had tricked countless smarter, more observant men, including Sano. But there was one person he had taken into his confidence.

  “His wife knows,” Reiko said, remembering the conversation she’d overheard between Minister and Lady Ogyu.

  “I wondered what would happen when it was time for him to marry. Then I heard he picked a plain, timid girl. I suppose she didn’t have the nerve to complain to somebody.”

  “They have two children. He couldn’t have fathered them. Where did they come from?”

  Kasane shook her head, as perplexed as Reiko. “Having children helped him pretend he was a man. Nobody ever guessed he wasn’t.”

  How fortunate for him, Reiko thought. “If his secret became public, there would be serious consequences.” The daughter of a magistrate, Reiko knew there weren’t any laws against women posing as men; the problem had never arisen. But the government wouldn’t let Minister Ogyu’s deception go unpunished. “At best, he would be stripped of his position and all his rights as a man, including marriage with a woman.” Lady Ogyu would lose her husband and her status as a wife, her children their legitimacy. “At worst, he would be put to death for fraud against the shogun. So would his wife, as an accomplice in the crime. And no matter what, he would be the center of a scandal, the butt of jokes.”

  For the proud samurai into which Minister Ogyu had fashioned himself, the humiliation would be worse than death.

  Reiko knew that his was a secret imminently worth killing for. Every intuition told her that Minister Ogyu had murdered Madam Usugumo. She didn’t need physical proof. She didn’t need to wait for news that Priest Ryuko was innocent. She would stake her life on the fact that Minister Ogyu hadn’t been willing to risk the chance that Madam Usugumo would talk after he spent his entire fortune on paying her blackmail. He had poisoned the incense that Madam Usugumo used in her last game.

  “He was so desperate that he didn’t care whether he killed her pupils, too.” Reiko was appalled by his indifference to the side effects of his crime. “Lord Hosokawa’s daughters were just accidental casualties.”

  “What’s going to happen to him?” Kasane asked anxiously. It was clear that she still cared about him in spite of how he and his family had used her. Her face was woeful with her shame that she’d betrayed his trust. “And his family?”

  “That’s for my husband to decide,” Reiko said.

  There came the sound of a door opening at the back of the house. A cold draft swept into the room. “Who’s there?” Kasane called.

  34

  After Sano finished with Priest Ryuko, he was so shaky that he feared he would faint in the saddle as he and his troops rode through town. His head pounded like a drum, the stitches on his scalp burned, his back hurt, and dizzy spells raised cold sweat on his body. He dug in his waist pouch and removed a small black opium pill, which he swallowed dry.

  “Let’s go back to Madam Usugumo’s house,” Sano told his troops.

  “Why?” asked Marume.

  “Just a hunch.” In truth, Sano wanted to look for clues that Hirata had missed.

  By the time they arrived in Usugumo’s neighborhood, the opium had taken effect
. The pain had ebbed; drowsiness softened the edges of the world around Sano. He saw a big, new pile of debris by the crack that had swallowed up the house. A man was pawing through the pile.

  “Where did this come from?” Marume asked.

  Sano peered into the crack. A sinister chill raised bumps on his skin. The crack was empty, as clean as if it had been swept out. “From in there, apparently.”

  Marume shook his head, nonplussed. “How did all that get up here?”

  “That’s a good question,” Sano said.

  The scavenger said, “Greetings, Honorable Chamberlain.”

  It was Mizutani, the incense master. His coat was covered with dust from his digging. He smacked his loose-fleshed hands together to clean them. With his soft, droopy face perspiring, he looked more like a melting candle than ever. He smelled of incense and sweat.

  “What are you doing?” Sano asked.

  “Uh, just poking around.” Embarrassment reddened Mizutani’s cheeks. He must have been looking for something he could steal from the dead woman who’d misused him. “Isn’t it strange? It’s as if the house climbed out of the hole.”

  “It is,” Sano said. “Do you know when it happened?”

  “I found it like this today.”

  Sano felt a disturbing suspicion. “Did anyone see what happened?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  Between now and the time when he’d first seen the house, Sano had sent Hirata back to it to search for evidence. Had Hirata somehow managed to levitate the house’s remains from the hole? If so, why hadn’t he told Sano? Sano recalled that when Hirata had brought Madam Usugumo’s book, he’d behaved oddly. Had Hirata not wanted to confess that something wrong had happened here? Sano chewed the inside of his cheek. Eventually, he must extract the truths that Hirata seemed determined to conceal.

  “Well, I guess I’ll be going.” Mizutani backed away.

  “Wait,” Sano said. “I want to talk to you some more.”

  “About the murders?” Mizutani halted, reluctant and morose. “I said I didn’t poison Madam Usugumo and her pupils. I wish you would believe me.”

  “I actually do,” Sano said. “But I’m hoping you can answer some new questions that have come up since we last met.”

  Mizutani cheered up. “Ask me anything you like.”

  Between the headache, the drowsiness, and the upset stomach, Sano was having difficulty thinking. He managed to recall one topic he wanted to broach with Mizutani. “You told me that Madam Usugumo stole your pupils. Was one of them Priest Ryuko?”

  “Priest Ryuko? He was her pupil? No. I’ve never even met him.” Mizutani looked envious of his enemy, then curious. “What does Priest Ryuko have to do with the murders? Is he a suspect?”

  Sano ignored the question. “What about Minister Ogyu from the Confucian academy? Did Madam Usugumo steal him from you?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact. Him and Lady Ogyu.”

  Sano felt the pulse-quickening excitement that always accompanied an important clue. He frowned as his drugged mind struggled to figure out why it was important. Through the opium fog he saw a connection between the two phases of his investigation-the phase when his suspects had been limited to Mizutani, the apprentice, and the dead women, and the phase after he’d learned about Priest Ryuko, Minister Ogyu, and the blackmail.

  “Lord Hosokawa’s daughters,” Sano said. “Were they your pupils before they were Madam Usugumo’s?”

  “Them, too,” Mizutani said resentfully.

  “Why didn’t you tell me all this before?”

  “With all due respect, Honorable Chamberlain, you didn’t ask.”

  Now Sano realized that Mizutani was the connection. Mizutani had known all the victims, plus Minister and Lady Ogyu. Lady Ogyu, as a pupil of Madam Usugumo, would have had the opportunity to sneak poisoned incense into Usugumo’s supplies. And Sano remembered Reiko saying that Lady Ogyu shared her husband’s secret. Lady Ogyu could have committed murder on his behalf.

  “Were Minister and Lady Ogyu acquainted with Lord Hosokawa’s daughters?” This seemed important to ask, although Sano couldn’t grasp why.

  “I don’t know if he was, but she was. I give group lessons for women. They usually enjoy it. Lady Ogyu took some lessons with Lord Hosokawa’s daughters. But I don’t think they had much fun. The daughters were always quarreling. It was so uncomfortable, I was almost glad when they switched to Madam Usugumo.” Mizutani added, “Lady Ogyu never said a word. A strange woman. I could never tell what she was thinking.”

  Nor could Sano fathom why the connection between Lady Ogyu and Lord Hosokawa’s feuding daughters was significant, although his instincts said it was.

  “Sano- san?” Detective Marume’s image blurred in front of Sano. “What’s wrong?”

  Sano realized that he was scowling in an effort to concentrate, and swaying on his feet. “Nothing,” he lied, then told Mizutani, “Thank you for your assistance. You can go.”

  “I’m taking you home,” Marume said as he and Sano walked toward their horses. “It’s my duty to tell you that you need to follow the doctor’s orders and stay in bed.”

  “Not yet,” Sano said. “We’re going to the Yushima Seid o. I have to talk to Lady Ogyu.”

  35

  Traveling back to Edo, Hirata set such a fast pace that his horse staggered to a halt on the outskirts of town. He jumped down, glanced up at the sky, and cursed. The sun was rapidly descending toward the western horizon. Desperate to reach the castle before the hour of the cock, he looked around. A mounted soldier trotted in his direction. Hirata ran to the soldier, pulled him off the horse, leaped on, and galloped away. He crouched low in the saddle; the horse’s hooves pounded the earth; Edo’s blighted landscape streamed past him. When the horse gave out in the daimyo district, Hirata leaped from the saddle and ran. Outside the castle, a long line of samurai waited at the gate. Hirata raced to the head of the line.

  “This is an emergency,” he told the sentries.

  They let him in. He hurried upward through the walled passages, veering around pedestrians, detouring around crumbled pavement. Halfway up the hill, porters carrying wooden beams blocked the path. On their left, the hill rose steeply to the next level of the castle. Hirata scaled the slope, grabbing at trees and shrubs. He climbed a broken wall and jumped down into another passage. Running past mounted patrol guards, he began to tire. Not even mystical powers could keep his body moving so fast indefinitely. By the time Hirata entered the palace gate, his leg ached from the old wound. He limped around the ruins of the palace. Reaching the guesthouse, he fell to his hands and knees. Sweat poured down his face. Panting, Hirata crawled.

  Temple bells began tolling the hour of the cock.

  Seated on the dais inside his chamber, the shogun announced, “It’s time for my exercise.” He held out his hand to Masahiro, who pulled him to his feet.

  “Fetch His Excellency’s outdoor clothes,” Masahiro told the other pages.

  The pages glowered at him; they didn’t like him giving them orders, but they obeyed. The shogun had granted him authority to tell everyone what to do. The pages dressed the shogun in the mounds of clothes he wore when he went for the brief walk his doctor had recommended. The shogun leaned heavily on Masahiro as they strolled around the garden, where dark green pines, leafless cherry trees, and frozen flower beds circled a pond with a bridge to a little pavilion. The shogun sniffled. Masahiro turned to him. Was he catching a cold? Everyone in Edo Castle feared he would take ill and die. Then Masahiro saw tears on the shogun’s cheek.

  “What’s the matter, Your Excellency?” Masahiro asked.

  “Ahh, I’m so unhappy.” The shogun sobbed.

  “Why?” Masahiro was puzzled. The shogun had everything a person could want.

  “Because I feel so lost,” the shogun said. “Life seems like a, ahh, path through darkness and confusion and danger. I don’t know which way to turn. And I’m all alone.”

  This was Masahiro
’s first inkling that power and wealth didn’t guarantee happiness. “But you’re not alone. You’re always surrounded by people.”

  “That’s part of my problem!” The shogun turned to Masahiro. His eyes and nose were red from weeping. “They’re so smart, and so, ahh, sure of themselves. They know what to do.”

  “But that’s good, isn’t it?” Masahiro said, mystified. “They can help you figure things out. You don’t have to do it by yourself.”

  “But I wish I could!” the shogun exclaimed. “I wish I were like my ancestor, Tokugawa Ieyasu, who defeated his enemies on the battlefield and founded the regime. He didn’t need anyone to tell him what to do or think. The cosmos would never think he was a poor ruler and send an earthquake to warn him!”

  Masahiro was amazed. He’d thought the shogun liked being dependent and idle. Maybe that was one of the many things the earthquake had changed.

  “But I’m too weak and stupid and useless,” the shogun said, wiping his tears on his sleeve. “And everybody thinks so.”

  “No, they don’t,” Masahiro hastened to lie. “They respect you.”

  “Only because they’re afraid that if they don’t, they’ll be put to death! I know! I’ve seen them sneer and roll their eyes when they think I’m not looking.”

  Masahiro had thought the shogun was too dense to notice. He didn’t know what to say.

  “And I deserve it.” Dissolving into sobs, the shogun leaned more heavily on Masahiro. “Ahh, how I wish I could be different! But it’s too late. I’ve been a fool all my life. I’ll be one until the day I die!”

  Masahiro didn’t know how to console the shogun. He thought about fetching help, but the shogun wouldn’t want anyone else to see him in this condition. And Masahiro felt protective toward his lord. He searched his brain for words.

  “It’s not too late. As long as we’re alive, there’s a chance to do the things that are important.” That was what his father had once told Masahiro when he was little, when he’d complained that he wanted to be a great sword-fighter and a great archer but he didn’t have enough time to practice both martial arts. “If you really want to change, you can.”