by Bund
"I've brought the things you asked for," Sano said. "A pouch that belonged to Kaibara Toju. A lock of hair from another murdered man. And the label from the trophy."
His words sounded flat and banal in this strange setting. Beyond them, the worship hall was a glittering architectural fantasy of gilt pillars and lattices, carved wood and stone, undulating gabled roofs, and brilliantly colored ornamentation. Floral and geometric paintings decorated the walls. Fierce demons climbed the pillars; dragons writhed over the door; Chinese lions glared from the eaves; phoenixes poised, wings spread for flight, on the roofs pinnacle. The Tokugawa had exercised no restraint in honoring their ancestors. In contrast, Aoi, with her dark hair and clothes and pale skin, had the stark drama of a black and white painting.
"Come with me," she said.
Her husky voice sent a shivery warmth vibrating through Sano. Intrigued, he followed Aoi out of the courtyard and into the woods. There her lantern barely pierced the darkness. Sano groped his way past trees, stumbling over stones as he hurried to match her swift, sure pace.
They stopped at a place where overhanging boughs made a natural shelter from the wind, but the night seemed even colder, as if the pines exuded a resinous chill. The sudden silence made Sano's ears ring. Aoi raised her lantern, and in its glow, Sano saw that they were in a sort of woodland shrine-a circular clearing carpeted with pine needles, with an altar in the middle and, at one edge, the moss-covered statue of a deity he couldn't identify.
Aoi knelt before the altar and used her lantern to light the candles and incense burners arranged in a circle there. Sano knelt opposite her. His curiosity about this enigmatic woman increased.
"Have you always lived at the castle?" he asked.
"Not always, master." In the candlelight, Aoi's skin glowed; he had an urge to feel its smoothness. The smoke from the incense, sweet and musky, veiled her in its thin tendrils.
Sano tried again. "How long have you tended the shrine?"
"Six years, master. Before that, I was a palace servant."
Was she trying to discourage his interest by reminding him of her low status? "Where are you from?" Sano persisted, guessing from the slow tempo of her speech that she was not an Edo native.
Having finished preparing the altar, Aoi folded her hands in her lap. "Iga Province, master." An unyielding quality in her polite manner brooked no further questions. "If you would please place the relics there."
Sano removed the pouch, the paper-wrapped hair, and the label from under his sash and laid them in the center of the circle as she'd indicated. The murder investigation was first priority now. Breaking through her reserve was a challenge he looked forward to meeting later.
Gazing down at the relics, Aoi sat motionless except for the deep breaths that expanded and contracted her chest. Her eyes focused inward, and her respiration gradually slowed until it seemed to cease altogether. She was apparently entering a trance state, similar to one of deep meditation. Time passed. Sano waited, himself entranced by the flickering candles, smoking incense, and Aoi's deathlike immobility. On the edge of his awareness, he heard the wind whistling outside the shrine, and the barking of a dog somewhere down the hill. The cold permeated his bones. A current of apprehension shot through him, and he felt an almost irresistible impulse to touch Aoi and make sure she was still alive.
Then her mouth opened, emitting a moan that wandered the range from high notes to low, and back again. Sano stared, transfixed by the ritual's powerful erotic quality. Aoi's moist lips, her moans, the quickening rise and fall of her bosom, and the sheen of sweat on her face all made him think of a woman succumbing to sexual pleasure. He could even see her nipples, large and erect, pressing through her kimono. Warm blood pooled in his loins. His overwhelming desire to touch her increased. Then she spoke.
". my son. Promise. "
The voice was that of an old man, weak and cracked with mortal sickness. Aoi's features took on a startlingly familiar cast. Sano sat forward so quickly that he almost lost his balance and fell onto the altar. Shock banished arousal as he recognized his father's voice and visage.
"Be the living embodiment of Bushido. "
Even as Sano reeled with the blow of hearing his father speak through Aoi, his mind cast about for a rational explanation. At his house, she must have noticed his father's memorial altar and known of his recent bereavement. But how could she evoke the essence of someone she'd never met, and speak words that he alone had heard? All doubts about her mystical abilities vanished in a flood of pure joy.
"Father," he whispered, eagerly reaching out to grasp his sire's elusive, longed-for presence.
To his intense disappointment, Aoi's face became her own again, and she lapsed back into the wordless moaning. She unclasped her hands and picked up Kaibara's pouch. Her eyelids lowered. Pressing the pouch between her palms, she rubbed the fabric against her nose and mouth and put her tongue to the dangling netsuke, as if physically extracting Kaibara's spirit from his belongings. She lowered the pouch to her lap and spoke in a high, querulous whine.
"In the last year of my life, I was plagued by great sorrow. Death came as a welcome release. Why must you now disturb my well-earned sleep?"
"I-I want to know who killed you," Sano faltered, startled by the fresh shock of having the spirit address him directly. And in a voice he could easily attribute to the frail, elderly Kaibara, whose remains he'd viewed in the morgue.
A long, tremulous sigh. "Why does it matter? What is done is done."
"Your murderer must be prevented from killing again," Sano said. "Please, Kaibara-san, tell me what happened last night. Did you see your killer?"
A long pause. Sano noticed with amazement that Aoi had assumed Kaibara's characteristics. Her body shrank into itself, her jaw slackened, her eyes dimmed. And were those new wrinkles creasing her face and neck? The candles sputtered. The incense smoke now filled the hollow with a thick, pungent haze that made Sano dizzy and his eyes water. The sound of more dogs barking echoed up and down the hill. Then Kaibara's voice issued again from Aoi's mouth:
"It was dark. Foggy. I could not see his face. But he was very tall. And he walked with a limp. "
"Which leg?" Sano demanded.
". the right. " As Kaibara's voice faded, the old-man cast fell away from Aoi, leaving her face blank of all personality.
"Kaibara!" Sano resisted his impulse to clutch at the departing spirit. "Come back!"
With the slow, deliberate movements of a priest during a sacred ceremony, Aoi replaced the pouch on the altar. She unfolded the paper from around the dead eta's lock of hair, which she rubbed between her finger and thumb, then cupped in both palms and sniffed. Recovering from the disappointment of losing contact with Kaibara, Sano waited tensely for the eta's spirit to appear.
Aoi's facial muscles tightened; her eyes darted from side to side with a feral wariness. Her shoulders hunched, and she held her arms close to her sides, hands clasped to her bosom. Sano gasped as he recognized the characteristic cringing posture of the eta.
A sudden gust of wind stirred the pine boughs overhead. The candles flickered; one of them went out in a hiss of singed wax. Aoi's lips moved.
". sorry. please, master, I don't mean to offend you. Forgive me!" This time the voice was hoarse, guttural, and laced with fear. Aoi bobbed a series of rapid bows, while her gaze flitted from Sano's face to the swords at his waist.
"I won't hurt you," Sano hastened to assure the spirit. "I just want you to tell me who killed you."
"Samurai. Don't know his name."
"What did he look like? Describe him."
Aoi's eyes blurred in fearful remembrance. "Big. Strong. Bad leg. And he was scarred."
"A scar? Where?" That the Bundori Killer had a visible identifying mark seemed too good to be true.
She shook her head impatiently. "Not just one. All over. Face. Hands." Her mouth worked as the inarticulate spirit struggled to say what he meant.
Sano hazarded a guess: "He was s
carred from the pox?"
A vigorous nod; a look of relief in the fearful eyes.
"What else? Tell me more."
But the spirit lapsed into an incoherent muttering that soon faded. Aoi shed the eta's feral guise and subservient posture. Sano watched with mounting excitement as she replaced the hair on the altar and picked up the label. Would he now learn the tall, lame, pockmarked samurai's identity?
Aoi fingered the label, and a deep shudder convulsed her body. Fixing her stricken gaze on some distant scene visible only to her, she whispered, "The soldiers are on the march again. Soon they will arrive at the destined battle site. He will draw his sword. And then-"
With a shriek, she hurled the label away from her. The paper swirled in brief flight, then drifted downward. Sano thrust his hand out to snatch it away from the candle flames.
"Look out!" he shouted as concern for the evidence overcame his fear of disrupting the ritual.
In a fumbling movement devoid of her customary grace, Aoi stood. Her knees upset the altar, scattering candles and incense burners across the clearing. Her groping hands knocked Sano's away before he could rescue the label or other relics.
"What do you think you're doing?" he demanded, angry as well as confused.
"Fire, fire!" she cried. Her trance had dissolved; her voice was clear and sharp, her face alert and filled with dismay.
Sano looked down and saw the fallen candles smoldering in the dried pine needles that covered the earth. He jumped up and started to stamp out the fires. In her haste to help, Aoi darted into his path. They collided full tilt, face to face, with a stunning crash. Instinctively Sano threw his arms around her to keep them both from falling.
He felt his insides turn to molten heat. Her body was warm, firm, and pliant, her breasts soft against his chest. His breath caught as a surge of desire hardened his manhood and intoxicated his senses. For the long moment during which he held her, he read in her wide eyes, parted lips, and rapid breathing a need that matched his own.
Then, with a quick wrench of her body, she broke his embrace. She knelt before the upset altar, face averted, arms hugging herself.
Sano finished extinguishing the fires. He righted the altar and reassembled the candles and burners on it, along with the label- charred on one end; the hair-a few strands missing; and the pouch. As he resumed his place, he found himself shaking. His heart thudded; his body still clamored with desire. The rapid succession of strong emotions he'd just experienced-the shock of hearing his father's voice, elation at getting the killer's description, and the excitement of the ritual's abrupt, chaotic end-had left him totally drained and exhausted.
"Are you all right?" he asked Aoi.
Without looking at him, she nodded.
"What happened?"
Now, when she faced him, he saw that although her face was paler, she'd regained her composure. "Forgive me for behaving so badly. Sometimes objects speak to me of the places they've been. The people who have touched them. The emotions they've absorbed. That paper made me see and feel disturbing things. "
Judging from her cool manner, they might never have touched. "You talked about soldiers marching, and someone drawing a sword," Sano said, trying to vanquish his lingering arousal by concentrating on business. "Was it the Bundori Killer?"
Aoi shook her head. "I don't know. But I sensed a great battle lust in him."
A new thought distracted Sano from his body's need. "Maybe the killer considers the murders acts of war, like the shogun does," he mused. "But was Kaibara his enemy, or Araki Yojiemon?" The battle scenario fit Araki's time better than the present. "And if it was Kaibara, why not put that name on the label?"
"Maybe he wanted them both dead."
Sano realized that Aoi didn't know who Araki was. "General Araki died at least a hundred years ago," he explained.
"Then perhaps the killer connected the two men in his mind. And attacked the living one."
"It's a thought," Sano admitted, intrigued by her suggestion. The connection between Araki and Kaibara bore looking into when he questioned Kaibara's family tomorrow. "But then why kill the man whose hair I brought you? He was an eta, with no conceivable link to two high-ranking samurai."
Interest animated Aoi's features as she rose promptly to the challenge. "And who better than an eta for a samurai to kill when he wants to test a sword or practice his technique?"
"Of course!" Sano regarded her with growing admiration. "The killer wanted to murder Kaibara, but he'd never taken a man's head or prepared a trophy. So he practiced on a victim for whose murder he would never be punished, if caught."
Discovery of Aoi's perceptive intelligence increased Sano's attraction to this mystic whose shocking, erotic ritual had yielded valuable clues. And her shining eyes, the eager forward tilt of her body, reflected her enjoyment of their collaboration. Fleetingly Sano thought of his prospective bride, about whose character and appearance he knew nothing. Then he forgot her as he sought a way to further his relationship with Aoi.
"Let's meet again tomorrow night," he said, enthusiastic in his pleasure at having a beautiful partner with whom to discuss his work. "I think your ideas will help me understand and catch the killer."
But strangely, his enthusiasm caused Aoi to withdraw into her former calm, aloof stillness. "As you wish," she said remotely. She scooped up the pouch, lock of hair, and label, and held them out to him, bowing.
It was a dismissal. She wanted him gone. Though Sano knew that a man of his position could order her to do anything he wanted, he would honor her wish. He couldn't think of her as an inferior to be used at will. She'd already given him more than he'd expected: insight into the killer's motives; a description of the man for whom to search. Reaching out, he accepted the relics.
Their hands touched. Hers was warm despite the cold night. From the faint blush that colored her cheeks, Sano suspected that the brief contact had stirred her desire too. But although he turned to look back at her as he left the clearing, she wouldn't return his gaze.
Perhaps tomorrow he would begin to know her-and to draw from her the same response she awakened in him.
Chapter 9
A low-lying fog veiled the city when Sano rode out through the castle's western gate early the next morning. Ahead, he could discern only the rooftops of the bancho. The district where the Kaibara clan and other Tokugawa hatamoto lived looked like a village in a painting, floating on a lake of mist against hills softened by white haze.
This pleasant impression quickly faded as he entered the bancho. Hundreds of small, ramshackle yashiki stood crammed together, each estate surrounded by a live bamboo fence. Thatched houses rose above the leafy stalks. The smells of horse dung and sewage permeated the air. These Tokugawa vassals, however long and faithfully they'd served their lord, were by no means Edo's richest citizens. Rising prices and the falling value of their stipends kept them poor compared with their landed superiors and the affluent merchant class. Signs of poverty abounded: half-timbered walls bare of whitewash or decoration; plain, roofless wooden gates, each with a single shack for a guardhouse; the simple cotton garments and unadorned leather armor tunics of the samurai who occupied the guardhouses and thronged streets barely wide enough for four men to walk side by side.
Sano stopped a passing samurai and asked the way to Kaibara's yashiki. But as he edged his horse through the crowds and down bumpy dirt roads, he quickly lost all sense of direction in the bancho's tangled maze. Sano remembered an old saying: "One born in the bancho might yet not know his way around it." Finally, after asking directions again and losing his way several more times, he arrived at the Kaibara estate. There, outside a gate hung with black mourning drapery, waited Hirata. His wide, suntanned face looked ruddy with health, and a boyish eagerness lit his eyes at the sight of Sano.
After they'd exchanged greetings, Sano said, "Find out if anyone saw Kaibara leave the bancho the night he was murdered, or saw anyone following him. Particularly a large, pockmarked samurai with a
lame right leg."
As he explained how he'd gotten the suspect's description, last night's events seemed bizarre and dreamlike. But his belief in Aoi's powers remained. As the young doshin set off to do his bidding, Sano glanced eastward at the castle. Mist still clung to its foundations, as if the spirits evoked in the ritual hadn't yet ceased haunting it. Sano wondered what Aoi was doing now, and whether her sleep, like his, had been disturbed by the experience they'd shared.
Banishing this irrelevant thought, he dismounted, approached the Kaibara guardhouse, and identified himself to the elderly sentry posted there. "I must speak to Kaibara's family."
"Yes, master." The guard shuffled toward the gate.
Sano wondered how a man so feeble could be charged with protecting his master's estate. "Were you on duty the night before last?" he asked.