The Snow Empress

by Laura Joh Rowland

  Deer Antlers hesitated, torn between murder and fear of punishment. His eyes shifted, seeking a compromise in which he wouldn’t lose face.

  Sano said, “Let’s go to Fukuyama Castle and sort this out.”

  “All right.” Deer Antlers scowled. “But hand over your weapons first.”

  Although Sano hated to be disarmed, he nodded at his group. Carrying their possessions in bundles, they marched along the road, the ten samurai riding the sleds behind them, dogs panting at their heels. Gaps between the trees showed glimpses of the ocean, brilliant blue and crusted with ice at the shoreline. The clear air was bitterly cold despite the sun, but Sano began to sweat from trudging through the deep snow. Reiko lagged, and he pulled her along. At least the exercise kept them warm.

  “You’ll all be sorry we came,” the Rat muttered.

  Sano wondered what was waiting for them at Fukuyama Castle. There was no plotting strategy without some idea of the circumstances. “Why does Lord Matsumae want us dead?” he called over his shoulder.

  “Shut up,” came Deer Antlers’ peevish voice.

  “What’s the matter with him?”

  “Just keep moving.”

  More questions brought Deer Antlers riding up close behind Sano. Dogs leaped on Sano’s back and knocked him into the snow. Hirata helped him to his feet and dusted him off.

  After almost an hour, Fukuyama City came into view. It was built on a harbor where ships stood in dry-dock near warehouses. Wisps of smoke rose from what looked like a small, fortified Japanese town. Snow-covered buildings clustered around the castle that squatted on a rise. Beyond town spread Ezogashima’s vast forests, the distant mountains fading blue into the sky. Southward, the ocean stretched, blank and boundless.

  Their escorts goaded Sano and his group past a military checkpoint. The abruptness with which they entered town unsettled Sano. The distance had seemed greater—a strange illusion. Along a main street, dingy wooden buildings contained shops. Merchants shoveled snow off their doorsteps. Sano didn’t see any women; they were few in these parts. He heard a gong tolling nearby, then realized that the sound came from a temple he could barely see perched on a high, faraway hill. An unusual quality of the air warped sound as well as sight. It gave Sano a disquieting sense that nature’s usual rules didn’t apply in Ezogashima.

  “Everyone here is Japanese,” Reiko commented softly.

  “The law bans Ezo from the city,” Sano explained.

  Samurai patrolled on foot, outnumbering the commoners, who kept their heads down, fearful of attention. Sano had the impression of a city clamped down even tighter under martial law than at home. He thought to wonder what the Ezo he’d met were doing around here at all. The Ezo came from their villages in the interior to live in the settlement during the trading season, spring through autumn only. Here was another strange circumstance.

  The procession mounted the rise to the castle. It was similar to Edo Castle, enclosed by a high stone wall topped with covered corridors and a guardhouse built over the ironclad gate, but on a smaller, lower scale. Its few peaked roofs seemed to sag under their weight of snow. Pine trees and a keep rose above them. Deer Antlers ran up to the two guards pacing outside the gate. They argued about what to do with their prisoners, until a guard said, “Take them to Lord Matsumae.”

  Marched through the gate, Sano found himself in a courtyard facing run-down barracks. More samurai guards loitered outside. As Deer Antlers led the way through a gate to the inner precinct, he called to a guard and pointed at Reiko.

  “Take her to the women’s quarters.”

  Reiko looked aghast at the thought of being separated from her group. Sano said, “No. She stays with us.”

  “One more word out of you, and I’ll cut you even if you are the chamberlain.” Deer Antlers told the guard, “Take her.”

  Sano felt helpless as he was led in one direction and Reiko another. He sent up a silent prayer for her safety. He never should have let Reiko come.

  A garden of snow-mounded shrubs and boulders surrounded the palace. Servants were clearing paths bordered by snow from earlier falls. Shaggy evergreens almost hid the half-timbered walls. More guards let Sano, his comrades, and his escorts in the door. Deer Antlers led them along a corridor almost as cold as outside. They entered an audience chamber. Its smoky heat from many charcoal braziers and glowing lanterns was a relief. But Sano felt something bad in the atmosphere even before he saw its occupant.

  Lord Matsumae crouched on the dais. He sprang to his feet as his men pushed Sano, Hirata, the Rat, and the detectives to their knees before him. An old, faded black robe that hung loose on his emaciated figure gave him the look of a crow. His face was gaunt and shadowed by whisker stubble, his shaved crown sprouting tufts of hair. His eyes were sunken, bloodshot, and burned with a strange light.

  Sano had met him once, during his attendance in Edo three years ago. He remembered Lord Matsumae as an intelligent man with sensitive features, refined manners, and impeccable grooming. The change in him shocked Sano. When Lord Matsumae moved to the edge of the dais and loomed over him, Sano smelled a foul stink of unwashed body. His robe was blotched with stains. What had happened to him?

  “Honorable Chamberlain.” A sneer twisted Lord Matsumae’s voice. “This is such an honor, that you’ve come all this way to see me.” His mockery turned to rage, and he shouted, “Now what in hell are you doing in my domain?”

  Sano realized that Lord Matsumae had gone mad. Whatever the reason, he was the source of the trouble in Ezogashima. And madmen were dangerous, especially when they commanded an army. Hirata and the detectives looked at Sano, angered by Lord Matsumae’s rudeness to him and expecting him to put the man in his place. But Sano thought it wiser to be cautious.

  “The shogun is concerned about you because you didn’t show up for your attendance,” Sano said, his tone deliberately mild. “He sent me to find out if you’re all right.”

  “Why, I’m perfectly fine.” Sudden tears glistened in Lord Matsumae’s eyes. Half his attention focused on Sano; half aimed inward, at something dark.

  “Then why didn’t you come?” Sano said.

  “I had more important things to take care of.”

  There shouldn’t be anything more important to a samurai than obeying his lord’s law. “Such as?”

  Emotions jerked Lord Matsumae’s face into tics.

  “Why have you closed Ezogashima?” Sano said, impatient as well as fearful because this man in the throes of a mental breakdown held the power of life and death over him and his comrades. “Why have you cut off communications?”

  Lord Matsumae crouched face-to-face with Sano. His stink nauseated Sano; his teary eyes blazed. “For the sake of justice. That’s something you should understand very well, Honorable Chamberlain. You, who have a reputation for seeking justice yourself and stopping at nothing to get it.” He laughed at the surprise on Sano’s face. “Oh, yes, I know about you. We in the far north aren’t such a bunch of isolated, ignorant brutes as you think. I am simply following your fine example.”

  Sano was dismayed that he could have inspired Lord Matsumae’s bad behavior, even unwittingly. “Justice for whom?”

  Lord Matsumae dropped to his knees. He whispered, “Tekare.”

  Sano felt Deer Antlers and the other guards hold their breath, a signal that the conversation had entered dangerous territory. “Who is Tekare?” Sano asked.

  “She was my mistress.” Grief clenched Lord Matsumae’s face. His tears spilled. “My dearest, beloved mistress. She’s been dead almost three months now.”

  Glad that they seemed to be getting somewhere at last, Sano said, “What happened to her?”

  “She was—” Lord Matsumae gulped. Tremors shook his body. “—murdered.”

  This, the loss of his woman, was the cause of his breakdown and the reason for everything that had followed. Love and grief had deranged him. Then he’d used his power to act out his madness and put himself in bad odor with the regime
.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. My sincere condolences.” However, Sano couldn’t quite believe that mourning was all that ailed Lord Matsumae. He’d never seen it cause such a spectacular transformation of character. There must be more to Lord Matsumae’s troubles, although Sano couldn’t imagine what. Again he had the disorienting sense that things were different here, the people as well as their environment subject to strange phenomena. “But I don’t understand why you closed off Ezogashima. What was that supposed to accomplish?”

  “I want to know who killed my Tekare,” Lord Matsumae said. Sardonic humor glinted through his misery. “You may think you’re a great detective, Honorable Chamberlain, but I’ve spent twenty years ruling this domain, and I know something about police work. What do you do with a murder suspect?

  “You lock him up and interrogate him until he confesses. Well, I have a whole city of murder suspects, all the people who were in the area when Tekare died. I’ve locked them all up. I’ve been busy interrogating them. I don’t want anybody from the outside to come in and interfere. And I won’t stop until one of them confesses to killing Tekare.”

  Holding the domain hostage was a clever albeit extreme plan for a murder investigation, but it didn’t seem to have worked. “No one’s confessed?”

  “Not yet. But somebody will. They can’t hold out much longer.”

  A cold, ominous sensation trickled through Sano as he remembered the fear in the townspeople’s faces. “What have you done besides interrogate them?”

  Lord Matsumae laughed. “Come now, Honorable Chamberlain. Certainly you’re aware of means of making people talk.”

  Torture, Sano thought; legal although not always effective. “I’m aware that they often produce false confessions.”

  “No matter.” Lord Matsumae’s hand flicked away the legions who must have suffered at it. “And no matter that some of the suspects couldn’t withstand my interrogation.”

  “How many died?” Sano said, all the more disturbed.

  Lord Matsumae’s expression turned deliberately vague, mockingly innocent. “Did I say anyone died? But if they did, then their example should encourage someone who knows the truth about the murder to inform on the culprit.”

  If Lord Matsumae didn’t kill everybody first. Sano’s ominous feeling turned to dread. “I sent some envoys to you a while ago. They never returned. What became of them?”

  The darkness inside Lord Matsumae emanated from him in almost visible waves. “Ask them. You’ll be seeing them soon.”

  Sano was horrified for another reason besides his certainty that Lord Matsumae had murdered them and intended to kill him, too. “Lord Matsudaira had my son kidnapped and brought here.” Lord Matsudaira couldn’t have known what the trouble in Ezogashima was; by sheer luck he’d sent Masahiro, and Sano, into peril beyond his wildest imagining. “What’s happened to him?”

  Chapter Five

  The women’s quarters of Fukuyama Castle had winged eaves shading a railed veranda and wooden bars over the windows. A garden that might have been beautiful in summer was bleak with deep snow, bare trees, a frozen pond, and a deserted pavilion. The guard escorted Reiko inside, opened a sliding door, and thrust her into a room.

  “Here’s a visitor,” he announced to the people inside, then pointed a finger at Reiko. “You stay put. Or else.”

  After he left, Reiko looked at the five women who sat around a kotatsu—a frame with a table on top, a fire underneath, and a quilt spread over it and their legs. As she and the women exchanged bows, Reiko had an unsettling sense that she’d walked into any lady’s chamber back in Edo. They wore silk kimonos, white face powder, and red lip and cheek rouge, just like at home. Their eyes measured her from beneath shaved, painted-on brows. Chopsticks, tea and food in lacquer bowls, and porcelain spoons on the table completed the illusion.

  “Welcome,” the oldest woman said in a strangely flat, toneless voice. “I am Lord Matsumae’s wife.” She was in her forties, her upswept hair streaked with gray. Her face was pretty, but dark shadows of fatigue showed through her makeup. Her features sagged in a misery so strong that it tugged down Reiko’s own spirits. “May I ask who you are?”

  As Reiko gave her name, she noticed things about the scene that were different from home. The floor wasn’t tatami but native woven mats, the same kind that insulated the walls. The women’s robes were lined with fur that showed at the collars and cuffs, and they wore gloves. Reiko had an even stranger sense of Japanese culture grafted unnaturally onto Ezogashima, like a peach growing from a thorn bush.

  “I’m the wife of Chamberlain Sano from Edo,” Reiko said.

  The other four women looked surprised, but Lady Matsumae’s sad, tired expression didn’t change. “Please join us.”

  Everyone shifted to make room at the kotatsu. Reiko sat beside the youngest woman—a girl in her teens, who had a round face, hair worn in a long braid, and thick, pursed lips. She helped Reiko cover her legs with the quilt. Lady Matsumae introduced her other three companions. They were her ladies-in-waiting, wives of her husband’s retainers, all in their thirties. They murmured polite greetings. They seemed so much alike that Reiko promptly forgot which was whom. Lady Matsumae didn’t introduce the girl, who was evidently a maid. Her flowered robe was cotton, not silk. She wore no makeup; her face was naturally pale with rosy lips and cheeks. She flashed bright, curious glances at Reiko.

  Lady Matsumae offered food and drink. Reiko politely refused twice, then let herself be persuaded. There’d been no time for breakfast before the soldiers came to the Ezo camp, and she was starved. She drank hot tea and ate rice gruel with pickled vegetables and bits of fish. It tasted wonderful.

  “What brings you here?” Lady Matsumae said as if she couldn’t have cared less.

  Her eyes seemed to look right through Reiko, who thought that if she waved her hand in front of them, they wouldn’t even shift. “My husband has business with yours. Also, we’ve come to fetch our son, Masahiro. He was kidnapped in Edo and sent here.” Reiko’s urgency heightened with the hope that rose in her. “Have you seen him?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Lady Matsumae spoke so promptly and indifferently that it was obvious she hadn’t bothered to think before answering.

  “He’s eight years old and tall for his age,” Reiko persisted. “Are you sure you don’t know where he is?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Reiko turned to the other women. “What about you?”

  The ladies-in-waiting murmured polite apologies. Their callous attitude chilled and mystified Reiko. The maid gave her a sympathetic look but shook her head.

  “He may be inside this castle,” Reiko said. If Masahiro and his escorts had reached Fukuyama City, they would have come here, wouldn’t they? Reiko tried not to remember that the troops had almost killed her and Sano at the Ezo settlement. She resisted the fear of what might have happened to Masahiro. “I need to look for him. Will you help me?”

  Lady Matsumae had been eating her gruel while Reiko talked. She sipped her tea before she said, “I’m sorry, but that’s not my business.”

  She sounded less afraid of getting in trouble than too lethargic to lift a finger. The ladies shook their heads. The maid silently poured Reiko more tea.

  “I haven’t seen Masahiro in almost three months.” Reiko’s eyes filled with tears. “He’s such a good boy. He’s smart; he works hard at his studies. He’s going to be a good sword-fighter, too.” Reiko knew it was rude to brag about one’s own child, and she saw disapproval on the women’s faces, but she couldn’t stop herself. “I miss him so much. Please, won’t you help me find him?”

  The ladies-in-waiting looked at Lady Matsumae. A tremor crossed her face. It might have been from annoyance or stomach indigestion. She said, “That’s impossible.”

  “Why?” Reiko cried.

  Lady Matsumae sighed. “You ask too much.”

  Reiko couldn’t believe they could be so heartless. What’s wrong with you? she wanted to shout
. Instead she said, “I know I’m a stranger. I know you don’t owe me anything.” Even worse, she sensed that someone in this room did know something about Masahiro. She could smell it in the air. But why this conspiracy of silence? Desperate, she appealed to whatever compassion they had. “Do you know what it’s like to lose a child? Do you have any children of your own?”

  Lady Matsumae jerked as though Reiko had stabbed her. Pain shattered her indifference. “How dare you—you shouldn’t—you have no idea—,” she stammered. An upheaval of anger broke through the flat surface of her eyes.

  Puzzled by her reaction, Reiko said, “I’m sorry. What did I say that disturbed you?”

  There was a creaking noise, as if weight on the floor had shifted someplace nearby but out of sight. Lady Matsumae seemed to forget about Reiko. The anger congealed on her face as she whispered, “What was that?”

  “Your son?” Lord Matsumae’s gaze turned cagy. The audience chamber went still, the air thick with tension, as he narrowed his eyes at Sano. “I don’t know anything about him.”

  “You’re lying!” Furious, Sano leaped to his feet, but Deer Antlers and another guard dragged him down.

  “I never saw him,” Lord Matsumae said, suddenly defensive. “He must not have gotten here.”

  “Tell me the truth!” Sano demanded as terror shot through him. Had Masahiro been killed while Sano searched for him? Had he been dead while Sano and Reiko were traveling north? “What have you done to my son?”

  He lunged at Lord Matsumae. Two guards seized him as Lord Matsumae jumped backward, avoiding his clutching hands. Rage and grief stained Sano’s vision so dark that he could hardly see. He lashed out blindly.

  “Stop!” ordered Lord Matsumae.

  Hirata, Marume, and Fukida jumped the guards who held Sano. Deer Antlers and the other guards hurried to restrain them. Sano hit, kicked, and cursed at anyone who came near him. Hirata attacked the guards, who shrieked in pain from his strikes, flew through the air, and crashed bleeding and motionless. The Rat cowered fearfully in a corner. Lord Matsumae backed against the wall behind the dais as Sano went charging at him.