The Concubine's Tattoo

by Laura Joh Rowland

  Midori regarded him with wide, solemn eyes full of dawning hope. A smile trembled on her lips; her dimples flashed shyly, like sunlight glinting on pearls under water. Hirata felt a spring of happiness as he saw a possible answer to his longing.

  “What are you going to do now that Ichiteru is leaving?” he asked.

  “Oh, I’ll be lady-in-waiting to one of the other concubines,” said Midori. She added, “I’m supposed to stay at Edo Castle until I marry.”

  Or perhaps even afterward, Hirata thought, if he remained stationed here and their fortunes coincided. But that was rushing things. For now, he was satisfied to know they would both be at the castle long enough for the future to unfold.

  “Well,” Hirata said, grinning. “I’m glad to hear that.”

  Midori gave him a radiant smile. Sleeves touching, they continued along the path together.

  “It is my pleasure to open the celebration of the marriage of Sōsakan Sano Ichiro and Lady Ueda Reiko,” announced Noguchi Motoori.

  The go-between and his wife knelt upon the dais in the reception hall of Sano’s mansion. Beside them, Sano and Reiko, dressed in formal silk kimonos, sat beneath a huge paper umbrella, symbol of lovers. Wall partitions had been removed, expanding the room to accommodate three hundred banquet guests—friends and relatives, Sano’s colleagues, superiors, and subordinates, representatives of prominent daimyo clans. Glowing lanterns hung from the ceiling; the atmosphere shimmered with the scents of perfume, tobacco smoke, incense, and cooking.

  “Like rain after a drought, these festivities are much delayed and therefore all the more welcome,” Noguchi said. “Now I invite you to join me in congratulating the bridal couple, and wishing them a long, happy life together.”

  Musicians played a cheerful melody on samisen, flute, and drum. Servants passed out sake decanters and cups, proffered laden trays of delicacies. Cries of “Kanpai!” arose from the guests. His heart brimming with joy, Sano exchanged smiles with Reiko.

  The murder investigation was over, albeit not as comfortably as he would have liked. The violent deaths of Lord and Lady Miyagi still disturbed him. Lieutenant Kushida had been transferred to a post in Kaga Province, where he might or might not recover from his obsession and build a new life. Also, Sano felt that he should have guessed that Chamberlain Yanagisawa would sacrifice Shichisaburo, and somehow saved the actor.

  However, there would be plenty of time later to review the case, to apply the experience toward better results in future. Relative harmony had returned to Edo Castle. Tonight offered a happy respite from agonizing over the past. How much more significant this celebration was now than if it had taken place right after the wedding! To Sano it seemed a fitting tribute to the bond forged between him and his bride during the investigation. Under cover of their flowing sleeves, they clasped hands.

  Magistrate Ueda stood and made the first speech. “Marriage resembles the joining of two streams—two families, two spirits coming together. Though turbulence often results when the waters mix, may they continue to flow forever in the same direction, two forces united for mutual benefit.” Beaming proudly at Sano and Reiko, the magistrate raised his sake cup. “I toast the allegiance between our two clans.”

  The guests cheered and drank. Maids poured liquor for Sano and Reiko. Hirata spoke next: “During the eighteen months that I’ve served the Sōsakan-sama, I have found him to be an exemplary samurai and master. Now I’m glad that he has a wife of similar honor, courage, and fine character. I pledge my service to them for as long as I live.”

  More cheers; another round of drinks. Then an official entered the room and announced, “His Excellency the shogun, and his mother, the Honorable Lady Keisho-in.”

  In walked Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, regal in his brilliant robes and tall black cap. Keisho-in minced alongside him, smiling. Everyone bowed low, but the shogun gestured for them to rise. “Relax, we’re all, ahh, comrades here tonight.” Eschewing formality, he seated himself and Keisho-in before the dais. He said to Sano, “My mother wishes to present you with a special wedding gift.”

  Four priests wrestled a huge Buddhist altar through the door. As Priest Ryuko directed them to set it in the corner, the assembly stared in awe. Garish carved dragons, deities, and landscapes adorned the teak doors of the ceiling-high butsudan. There were columns inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and a gilt pagoda roof. It was a masterpiece of ugliness.

  “Wherever shall we put it?” whispered Reiko.

  “In a prominent place,” Sano whispered back. The gift sealed the alliance between him and Lady Keisho-in. With her support he hoped to convince the shogun to enact reforms that would reduce government corruption and benefit the citizens’ welfare. And they needed each other to counteract the influence of Chamberlain Yanagisawa, who was conspicuously absent from the banquet. After the failure of his plot, Yanagisawa would be more eager than ever to ruin them. “That’s the most glorious butsudan I’ve ever seen,” Sano declared. “Many thanks, Honorable Lady.”

  Keisho-in giggled. The audience murmured polite praises, and Priest Ryuko led his brethren in a chant of blessing. Sano studied the handsome priest with interest: Ryuko, too, was a valuable ally. In the space of a single investigation, he’d built a strong power base from which to further his search for truth and justice.

  More speeches followed, with much eating, drinking, music, and merriment. Guests approached the dais to wish the bridal couple well. During a lull, Sano turned to Reiko.

  “Happy?” he asked.

  Reiko smiled. “Very.”

  “Me, too.” This was truly the best day of Sano’s life. Of course he knew that such perfect contentment couldn’t last. There would be more dangerous investigations; the ongoing fight to maintain his position in the political battlefield of the Tokugawa regime; the serious and minor crises of life. But for now, Sano basked in serenity. With such good friends and allies, future success seemed assured. And right beside him was the source of his new optimism.

  “Let’s make a promise,” he said. “Whatever happens, we’ll always be lovers.”

  Reiko squeezed his hand; her eyes sparkled with mischief. “And partners,” she added.

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  Prologue

  Nine hundred years ago, the city was Heian-kyo. Capital of Peace and Tranquility, founded as seat of the emperors who ruled Japan. Now, long after the reigning power had passed to the Tokugawa shoguns and their stronghold in Edo far to the east, it is simply Miyako, or Kyoto—the capital But the shadows of the past haunt the present. The Imperial Palace still dominates the city, as always, forever. There the current emperor and his court exist as though suspended in time, masters of no one, human relics of bygone splendor. After centuries of war and bloodshed, of fallen regimes and changing fortunes, the eternal antagonisms, forgotten secrets, and ancient dangers still survive….

  In the imperial enclosure, the palace’s innermost private heart, a warm summer midnight enfolded the garden. Over flowerbeds and gravel paths, the foliage of maple, willow, cherry, and plum trees arched in dark, motionless canopies. The evening rain had ceased; a full moon glowed through vaporous cloud. The calm surface of the pond reflected the sky’s luminosity. On an island in the pond’s center, a rustic cottage stood amid twisted pines. Inside burned a lantern, its white globe crisscrossed by the window lattice.

  West of the garden loomed the residences, ceremonial halls, offices, storehouses, and kitchens of the emperor’s household. Their tile roofs gleamed in the moon’s pallid radiance. From a passageway between two buildings, another lantern emerged. It swung from the hand of the left minister, chief official of the Imperial Court.

  He strode along the pond toward a stone bridge leading to the island. Heat hazed the
air like a moist veil. Fireflies twinkled feebly, as if the humidity quenched their light. A waterfall rippled; frogs croaked. The chirps of crickets and shrill of cicadas blended into a solid fabric of sound stretched across the night. The lantern cast the shadow of the left minister’s tall figure dressed in archaic imperial style—wide trousers and a cropped jacket whose long train dragged on the ground. Beneath his broad-brimmed black hat shone the sallow face of a man in middle age, with the arched brows and haughty nose inherited from ancestors who had held his post before him. As he followed a path between the trees toward his secret rendezvous, anticipation increased his pace. A smile hovered upon his mouth; he drew deep breaths of night air.

  The drowsy sweetness of lilies and clover drifted heavenward over the pond’s marshy scent, masking the rich summer odors of damp earth, grass, night soil, and drains. A sense of well-being intoxicated the left minister, heady as the night’s aromatic breath. He felt as vigorous as in his youth, and extraordinarily alive. Now he could look back through years of anguish with detachment.

  Fifteen years ago, an unfortunate convergence of fate and deed had condemned him to serve two masters. Birthright had placed him in a station at the heart of palace affairs, in a position to know everything worth knowing. A crime committed in passion had rendered him vulnerable to persons outside the sequestered world of the court’s five thousand residents. His two best qualities—intelligence and a gift for manipulating people—had doomed him to live in two worlds, an impotent slave in one, isolated from family, friends, and colleagues in the other. He’d been an actor playing two opposing roles. But now, having reclaimed the power to shape his own destiny, he stood ready to unite his two worlds, with himself at their summit.

  Tonight would bring a taste of the rewards to come.

  The light in the pavilion kindled the left minister’s eagerness. He walked faster as a surge of sexual arousal fed his new sense of omnipotence. Although uncertainty and danger lay ahead, he was buoyed by confidence that soon he would realize his highest ambitions, his deepest desires. Tonight everything was already prepared, an advance celebration of his triumph.

  Along the pond, a bamboo grove rustled in the breeze-less air. The left minister paused, then dismissed it as the movement of some harmless feral creature and continued on his way. But the rustling followed him. Hearing footsteps, he frowned in puzzled annoyance.

  The imperial family, their lives circumscribed by tradition, rarely ventured outside so late. Desiring privacy for his rendezvous, the left minister had ordered everyone else to stay out of the garden tonight. Who dared to disobey?

  Reluctantly he stopped again. The bridge lay a hundred paces ahead; across the silvery pond, the cottage lantern beckoned. The left minister peered into the dense thicket of bamboo.

  “Who’s there?” he demanded. “Show yourself!”

  No answer came. The moving bamboo leaves stilled. Angry now, the left minister stalked toward the intruder. “I order you to come out. Now!”

  An abrupt change in atmosphere halted him ten paces short of the grove. Here the night seemed charged with energy. A soundless vibration pulsated through the left minister. The insect shrills receded to the edge of his hearing; the darkness paled within the space around him. His skin tightened, and his heart began to thud in deep, urgent beats. The will of the person in the bamboo grove seemed to close around the left minister’s mind. Inexplicable fear seized him. Icy sweat broke out on his face; his muscles weakened.

  He knew that the person must be a member of the emperor’s family, a servant, courtier, or attendant—a mortal human. But the strange force magnified the left minister’s image of the intruder to gigantic size. He could hear it breathing monstrous gulps of air.

  “Who are you?” His query came out sounding weak and timorous. “What do you want?” Somehow he understood, without word or gesture from the anonymous presence, its evil intent toward him.

  Thé ominous breathing came faster, louder. The left minister turned and fled. On north and south, fences sealed off the garden. To the east, a stone wall separated the imperial enclosure from the estates of the court nobles. Vacant audience chambers, locked at night, cut him off from the shelter of the palace. There was no refuge except the island cottage. The left minister ran toward the lighted window, which promised companionship and safety, but his legs felt clumsy, his body weighted with the heavy malaise of nightmare. He stumbled, dropping his lantern. His stiff, cumbersome garments further hampered movement. Close behind, he heard the breathing, a vicious, predatory rasp. The ghostly grip on his mind crushed his courage.

  “Help!” called the left minister, but his pursuer’s will strangled his voice. Now he was sorry he’d banned everyone from the garden. He knew he could expect no help from the cottage’s lone occupant.

  As he struggled on, the eerie force enclosed him like a bubble. Desperately he zigzagged, trying to escape, but the awful pulsating sensation followed him. The weakness in his muscles increased. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw, through the force’s pale halo, the indistinct silhouette of a human figure advancing on him. His heart pounded; his lungs couldn’t draw enough air. He reached the bridge without the strength to run any farther. Falling to his knees, he crawled. The rough stone surface abraded his hands. He heard the chilling tap-tap of the intruder’s footfalls coming closer. Reaching the island, the left minister dragged himself across sandy grass. He clutched the railing of the cottage veranda and pulled himself to a standing position. The three steps to the door loomed like towering cliffs. In the window, the lantern glowed, a mocking symbol of hope denied. The left minister turned to face his pursuer.

  “No,” he gasped, raising his hands in a futile attempt to ward off the undefined threat. “Please, no.”

  The intruder halted a few steps away. The noisy breathing stopped. Waves of panic washed over the left minister as he cowered in the sudden awful silence. Then, in the blurred oval of its face, the intruder’s mouth opened—a darker void in darkness. Air rushed inward.

  The scream shattered the night: a deafening wail that encompassed the full range of sound, from deepest groan to shrillest whine. The ghastly, inhuman voice blasted the left minister. Its low notes thundered through him with rumbles a million times stronger than an earthquake. The left minister’s limbs splayed as sharp cracks like gunfire shot along his bones. As he howled in pain, sinews snapped. Terror combined with wonder.

  Merciful gods, what is this terrible magic?

  The scream’s middle notes churned his bowels into liquid fire. The wail resonated in his heart, which beat faster and faster, swelling inside his chest. As his lungs ballooned, he breathed with harsh gasps. He fell, writhing in agony. The scream’s shrillness arced along his nerves; convulsions wracked him. In the final moment before pain devoured reason, he knew he would never make his rendezvous. Nor would his dreams ever come to pass.

  Now the left minister’s insides erupted. Hot blood surged into his throat, filled his ears, choked off his breath, and blinded him. The scream’s vibrations escalated until his brain exploded in a cataclysm of white-hot light.

  Then death extinguished terror, pain, and consciousness.

  The scream echoed across the city, then faded. A lull in the normal night sounds followed in its wake. For an eternal moment, time hung suspended in dead quiet. Then the doors and gates of the palace slammed open; lamps lit windows. The compound came alive with the clamor of voices, of hurrying footsteps. Flaming torches borne by guards converged on the imperial enclosure.

  A breath extinguished the flame of the lantern in the cottage. A shadowy figure crept through the garden, merging with other shadows, and disappeared.

  1

  From the attic of a shop in Edo’s Nihonbashi merchant district, Sano Ichiro, the shogun’s Sōsakan-sama—Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People—conducted a secret surveillance. He and his chief retainer, Hirata, peered through the window blinds. Below them lay Tobacco Lane, a street of tobacco
shops and warehouses, restaurants and teahouses. As the summer twilight deepened, the peaked roofs turned to dark silhouettes against a rosy sky. Tobacco Lane, recently bustling with daytime commerce, was now a corridor of blank facades, its storefronts hidden behind sliding doors. Lanterns burned over gates at either end of the block. Across the city echoed the usual evening music of dogs barking, horses’ neighs, the clatter of night-soil carts, and tolling temple bells. The only sign of activity came from the Good Fortune Noodle Restaurant, a tiny establishment wedged between two shops across the street. Lamplight striped its barred window. Smoke wafted from the kitchen.

  “Dinner’s long past,” Sano said, “but I smell fish cooking over there.”

  Hirata nodded. “She’s definitely expecting someone.”

  “Let’s just hope it’s our man,” Sano said.

  Nearby, Sano’s wife, Reiko, stood amid bales of fragrant tobacco. Her pastel summer robes glowed in the faint light from the window and open skylight. Twenty-one years old, with eyes like bright black flower petals and long, lustrous hair worn in a knot, she was small and slender. Since their marriage last autumn, Sano had defied convention by permitting Reiko to help with his cases. Even though both of them knew that a proper wife should be waiting for him at home, he’d learned that Reiko could question witnesses and uncover evidence in places where a male detective couldn’t go. Now here to witness the climax of this investigation, Reiko joined Sano and Hirata at the window. She tensed, listening, her lovely, delicate oval face alert.

  “I hear someone coming,” she said.

  In the street below, an old man shuffled into view, leaning on a cane. The lantern at the gate illuminated his straggly white hair; a tattered kimono hung on his stooped body.

  “That’s the Lion of the Kanto?” Surprise lifted Reiko’s voice. The notorious crime lord ruled a band of gangsters who ran gambling dens, robbed travelers, operated illegal brothels, and extorted money from merchants throughout the Kanto, the region surrounding Edo. “I expected someone more impressive.”