The Ronin’s Mistress si-15

by Laura Joh Rowland

  Taken by surprise, Masahiro yelled. He dropped the clothes and banged his elbow painfully on the cabinet as he turned.

  Goza stood there, her fists clenched, a savage look on her mustached face. Masahiro stammered, “I was just looking-”

  “For what?” Goza towered over him, trapping him against the cabinet.

  Masahiro remembered that this was his house, he was a detective, and he was the one supposed to ask the questions. He snatched up the clothes he’d dropped and thrust them at Goza. She stepped back. Moving away from the cabinet, he said, “Where did this blood come from?”

  Goza’s eyes were like a pig’s, small and mean, sunken into the thick flesh of her broad face. “None of your business,” she said, and grabbed the clothes.

  “You have to answer,” Masahiro said. “Or I’ll get my father, and you can tell him.”

  The piggy eyes glinted with fear and antagonism. “It’s from a bloody nose.”

  “Whose nose? My grandfather’s? Did you beat him up?”

  “Stupid boy,” Goza said. “You don’t know anything.”

  “Where were you the night before last?” Masahiro persisted.

  “Here. In the house.”

  “No, you weren’t,” Masahiro said disdainfully. “I already asked the guards. They said you left and didn’t come back until the next morning. Where were you really?”

  Goza muttered a curse. “I was out.”

  “Out, where? What were you doing?”

  A dirty, sly gleam crept into Goza’s eyes. “Do you like Okaru?”

  Masahiro was taken aback by the change of topic. His first impulse was to lie rather than tell Goza to mind her own business. “No.”

  “Yes, you do.” Goza regarded him with amused contempt. “I’ve seen the way you look at her. You want her, just like all the other men.”

  His face aflame with embarrassment, Masahiro could only shake his head. If Goza knew how he felt about Okaru, who else did?

  Goza grabbed him by the front of his kimono and yanked him close to her. Masahiro was so startled that he forgot to resist. She said, “Listen, stupid boy. Better not tell anybody what you found.” Masahiro recoiled from her hot, sour breath. “If you do, it won’t just be me that gets in trouble. It’ll be Okaru, too. Because I’m her servant. Whatever I’ve done, it was because she told me to. She’ll be arrested and killed. And it will be your fault.”

  As Masahiro gaped in horror, the floor in the corridor creaked under footsteps. He heard the maid say, “I just saw Goza, she went in there.”

  Goza released Masahiro, stepping back from him just before the maid and a guard entered the room. “You’re not allowed in here anymore,” the guard told Goza. “Come with me.”

  Goza bent a warning look on Masahiro. “Remember what I said.”

  Before she and the guard left the room, Masahiro caught a fleeting glimpse of two crude black tattoos on her wrist.

  * * *

  Okaru’s new room was a cubbyhole in the servants’ quarters, an outbuilding near the kitchens. Lieutenant Tanuma leaned against the wall in the corridor outside, guarding Okaru. Before Reiko left the estate, she looked in on her prisoner. Okaru knelt on the mattress on the wooden pallet, her sad face lifted to the sunlight that came through the paper panes of the barred window. When she saw Reiko, her eyes filled with hope and entreaty. Reiko shut the door, pulled her cloak tighter around herself, and left the servants’ quarters. Walking up the path to the mansion, she met Chiyo.

  Chiyo fell into step beside Reiko and voiced the thought that was on both of their minds. “Did she do it?”

  “I don’t know,” Reiko said. “But I don’t think so.”

  “I must say that neither do I,” Chiyo said. “When we first met Okaru, I was distrustful of her, but I can’t believe she has it in her to deliberately harm anyone.”

  Guilt distressed Reiko. “If she didn’t have anything to do with the attack on my father, then I’m being cruel to treat her like this.” Suspicion provoked a burn of anger. “If she did, then I’ll never forgive myself for bringing her into my family.”

  Chiyo didn’t say she’d warned Reiko not to get involved with Okaru. She said soothingly, “You couldn’t have known what would happen to your father. It isn’t your fault, even if it is Okaru’s. You were trying to help someone in need. And maybe Okaru is innocent.”

  Even if she was, she’d certainly opened the door to a lot of trouble. Without her story about Oishi and the vendetta, Sano’s investigation might not have taken the course that it had. Magistrate Ueda might not have been attacked.

  But Reiko said, “You’re right. The assassin could be someone who has a personal grudge against my father. And if he was hired by someone, there are other people besides Okaru who could have done it. I’m going to see Oishi’s wife and Lady Asano.”

  She and Chiyo reached the front courtyard, where her palanquin, bearers, and guards stood waiting. Chiyo said, “Shall I come with you?”

  “I’d better go alone.” Reiko needed time to think.

  The two women bid each other a stilted good-bye. Reiko climbed inside her palanquin, unhappily aware that she’d hurt Chiyo’s feelings. Even if Okaru was innocent, she had come between Reiko and Chiyo.

  * * *

  Riding away from Edo Castle, Hirata studied the list of repeat offenders. Their residences were scattered all over town. He wouldn’t have time to look for Tahara, Kitano, and Deguchi. Now that he’d slept on his encounter with them, it seemed unreal, the aim of their society a joke. Magic rituals to influence the course of fate, indeed!

  He glanced backward at the palace, where Tahara had thrown the branch, and snorted. What did those men think was going to happen? The hill under Edo Castle would erupt like a volcano?

  One repeat offender, named Genzo, lived near the blacksmiths’ district, where the doshin had chased Magistrate Ueda’s attacker. Hirata rode along a narrow lane. Between the gates at the ends were tenements-ramshackle, two-story, connected buildings. A woman came out of a room on a lower floor and dumped a pail of dirty water onto muddy snow. Balconies fronted the upper stories. Smoke from the blacksmiths’ shops fouled the air with soot.

  A man emerged onto a balcony. He had shaggy black hair; his gray kimono strained across his thick shoulders. He looked out onto the street, yawned, and scratched his head. Hirata saw two black tattoos on the man’s arm, at the same instant he sensed the sullen red aura with glinting sparks, the energy that bespoke weakness and brutality. A combination of Reiko’s detective work and Hirata’s supernatural powers had led to the culprit.

  The man turned his head toward Hirata. Recognition flashed in his puffy eyes, even though he and Hirata weren’t acquainted: A perpetual criminal knows the law when he sees it coming after him. He rushed into the room behind the balcony. Hirata galloped his horse toward the house, stood in the saddle, and jumped.

  He caught the wooden railing of the balcony and pulled himself up. He charged into a room cluttered with an unmade bed, heaps of clothes, and a bow and a quiver of arrows. The man was nowhere in sight. Hirata heard footsteps pounding down stairs. He sped through a curtained door, into a dim, narrow stairwell. Clearing the stairs in one leap, he saw the man run across a courtyard. Hirata caught the man by the shoulder just before he reached the gate. The man turned, his eyes wide with shock: He couldn’t believe Hirata had caught up with him so fast. Hirata squeezed a nerve in his shoulder. The man crumpled, howling with pain.

  “Who are you?” He clutched his arm, which jerked in spasms. “What did you do to me?”

  Hirata said, “Don’t worry-the damage isn’t permanent. My name is Hirata.”

  The man gasped. He obviously knew Hirata’s reputation. “What do you want?”

  “Are you Genzo, convicted twice for assault?” Hirata asked.

  “Yes. But I haven’t done anything wrong since then.”

  “You ambushed three men the other night,” Hirata said. “You killed two of them and beat the third so ba
dly that he may die, too.”

  “How did you know I did?” Genzo was so flabbergasted that he didn’t think to deny the accusation. Confusion, terror, and pain had caused him to blurt out his guilt.

  “Never mind.” Hirata seized Genzo by his uninjured arm and hauled him to his feet. “You’re under arrest.”

  As he marched Genzo out of the courtyard to the street, Hirata looked up at Edo Castle. It looked the same as ever, with a smoke haze around its hill and its white walls and tile roofs shining in the sun. Nothing had happened yet, as far as Hirata could tell.

  31

  Reiko remembered that Oishi’s former wife had said she worked as a maid for a salt merchant. Accompanied by her guards, Reiko rode in her palanquin past the salt warehouses along a canal near the reeking fish market in Nihonbashi. Peasants hefted crocks of salt out of boats moored at the quays. In the district where the merchants lived, Reiko’s guard captain asked a watchman at a neighborhood gate, “Where can we find a woman named Ukihashi?”

  “Oh, the samurai lady. She works for Madam Yasue,” the watchman said, and gave directions to the house.

  Ukihashi had said that her employer enjoyed having a samurai lady for a servant, Reiko recalled. Evidently, Madam Yasue was so proud of it that she’d spread the word.

  The procession stopped in a street of houses that were big but plain. Sumptuary laws prevented commoners from flaunting their wealth; the penalty was confiscation of their assets. Any expensive things were hidden behind those bamboo fences and half-timbered walls. Reiko climbed out of her palanquin, went up to the gate, and rang the bell.

  A girl answered. She was about ten years old and wore the indigo kimono and white headscarf of a maid. Reiko said, “I’m looking for Ukihashi. Is she here?”

  Before the girl could reply, the door of the house behind her opened. A stout, middle-aged woman emerged. Her upswept hair was dyed a fake, bronzy shade of black. She wore thick makeup and a garish floral kimono. “Who’s there?” she barked at the girl.

  “A lady,” the girl mumbled. “She wants to see my mother.”

  Reiko noticed that the girl had Ukihashi’s square face and delicate features. The woman, presumably Madam Yasue, raked her gaze over Reiko. “Who are you?”

  Reiko introduced herself.

  “Ukihashi is a servant who has work to do,” Madam Yasue said, “but I’ll let you see her for a few minutes.” She jerked her chin at the girl.

  The girl trudged toward the rear of the house. Reiko followed. She pitied Ukihashi and her daughter, employed by that mean, vulgar woman. She tried not to think that their fate could be hers someday. If Sano left, there was no telling what depths she and the children might sink to, even if he wasn’t made a ronin.

  The kitchen occupied a building attached to the house by a covered corridor. Its yard contained buckets, a storage shed, and slop barrels. Steam that smelled of fermented soybeans billowed from the open door. Reiko heard rattling, sizzling, and hissing noises. She entered, peered through the steam, and saw two women at a table surrounded by pots boiling on the hearth, dishware on shelves, utensils hung from the ceiling, bales of rice, and ceramic jars of food. Ukihashi was cleaning fish, slitting their bellies with a sharp knife and scraping out the entrails. The other woman knelt with her back to Reiko. All Reiko could see of her was her head drape and her cloak.

  Ukihashi glanced up and noticed Reiko. Her raw, chapped lips parted. The other woman turned. It was Lady Asano. The drape covered her shaved head. Her plain, round face revealed shock and dismay. Reiko had never seen two people less glad to see her.

  Ukihashi said, “What are you doing here?”

  “I need to talk to you again,” Reiko said.

  Lady Asano rose hastily. “I’ll be going, then.”

  “Stay,” Reiko said. “I need to talk to you, too.”

  Lady Asano reluctantly knelt. “About what?”

  “First, I want to know why you’re here,” Reiko said.

  “We’re friends.” Lady Asano’s small, wide-set eyes skittered. “I’m just visiting.”

  “I thought you’d had a quarrel,” Reiko said.

  “We’ve made up,” Ukihashi said in a flat tone meant to discourage more questions.

  Reiko sensed the strain in the air that accompanies a serious, intimate discussion. The women’s eyes were red and swollen. “Why have you been crying?”

  “It’s none of your affair.” Ukihashi gutted another fish. “Either say what you came to say or go. I’m busy.”

  “A judge on the supreme court was attacked the night before last,” Reiko said. “He’s my father.” She watched the women; their expressions were blank. “He was badly beaten.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lady Asano said with the indifference of a person so beleaguered by her own problems that she didn’t care about anyone else’s. “But what has that to do with us?”

  “My husband and I think it was arranged by somebody who wants to sabotage the supreme court.” Reiko sprang her accusation on both women. “Was it you?”

  Lady Asano laughed, an involuntary outburst, behind her hand. Ukihashi said, “No.” Her tone was incredulous. “Why would you think it was us?”

  “Because you have an interest in the verdict.” Although their reaction suggested that her suspicions were baseless, Reiko said, “Ukihashi-san, you would seem to want your husband punished. Lady Asano, you would surely rather have the forty-seven ronin pardoned.”

  “I didn’t beat your father,” Ukihashi said, indignant. “I’ve never wanted to hurt anybody.”

  Her bloody hand gripped the knife. Reiko remembered the ferocity with which she’d attacked Okaru.

  “Me, either,” Lady Asano said.

  “My husband and I think this attack was done by a criminal for hire,” Reiko said.

  “How could I have hired a criminal, even if I knew how, which I don’t? I’ve been cooped up in this house, working,” Ukihashi retorted. “You can ask my employer.”

  “I’ve been stuck in a convent for two years, remember,” Lady Asano said. “This is the first time I’ve been out.”

  “Besides, where would I have gotten the money?” Ukihashi demanded. “I earn barely enough for me and my daughters to live on.”

  “My fortune was confiscated by the government,” Lady Asano said.

  Reiko had forgotten how circumscribed their lives were, how limited their means. Their logic, and their sincerity, and the problem of how they would have learned which judge on the supreme court to attack, convinced her that they were innocent of the crime against her father. But she could smell secrets in the air, like a whiff of the fish entrails on the table.

  “Somebody will pay for my father’s injuries,” Reiko said. “When my husband finds out that you wouldn’t cooperate with me, he may decide that it should be … you.” Reiko settled her gaze on Lady Asano.

  Lady Asano jerked back as if Reiko had thrown mud on her. “That’s not fair! None of this is! I’ve never done anything wrong, and I’ve been punished anyway. Isn’t it someone else’s turn?”

  “Fine. I’ll tell my husband to pick you.” Reiko turned on Ukihashi.

  “No. Please.” Alarmed, Ukihashi raised her hands. “I don’t care about myself, but if I’m put to death, who will take care of my daughters?”

  “If it has to be one of us, then let it be me,” Lady Asano said, moved to sacrifice herself for the sake of friendship. “I’m all alone in the world.”

  “It doesn’t have to be one of you.” Reiko was merciless, even though she hated tormenting these helpless women. She was fed up with people lying to her and Sano and withholding information. Determined to learn the truth about the vendetta, keep her family together, and find out who’d hurt her father, she said to Ukihashi, “Your son would be a good scapegoat.”

  “Not Chikara!” Vicious anger transformed Ukihashi’s face. She lunged toward Reiko, her slimy hands outstretched to maim. “Leave him alone!”

  Lady Asano grabbed Ukihashi and crie
d, “Don’t! You’ll only make things worse!”

  As Ukihashi struggled and shouted protests, Reiko said, “If Chikara is convicted of hiring the assassin that hurt my father, then it won’t matter if the supreme court pardons the forty-seven ronin. He’ll be sentenced to death.”

  Lady Asano looked around, in desperate hope of escape or salvation. Finding neither, she said to Ukihashi, “We have to tell her.”

  “Tell me what?” Reiko said, elated that her tactic had worked, yet ashamed of her cruelty.

  Ukihashi’s face was a mess of tears and panic. “We promised it would be our secret!”

  “We must,” Lady Asano said, “if you want your son to have a chance to live.”

  Resignation settled over Ukihashi like an invisible net that pulled tight and squeezed the defiance out of her. “All right. But it won’t be what you expected to hear.”

  1701 April

  Inside Lord Asano’s estate in Edo, Ukihashi dressed her two daughters in new, matching pale green kimonos. She smiled at the girls and said, “Don’t you look pretty!”

  A servant interrupted. “Kira Yoshinaka is here to see you.”

  Ukihashi was surprised. What could the shogun’s master of ceremonies want with her? She hurried to the reception room and found the old man kneeling by the alcove. His head tilted upward at a haughty angle, and his eyebrows had an arrogant arch, but he smiled warmly.

  “Hello, my dear,” Kira said. “You’re every bit as beautiful as I’ve heard.”

  Flattered, confused, and timid, Ukihashi blushed as she knelt and bowed. “You’re too kind … I don’t deserve … May I offer you some refreshments?”

  While they drank tea and nibbled cakes, Kira chatted about the weather. His bright-eyed, intense scrutiny made Ukihashi uncomfortable. Finally he said, “My dear, I wonder if you would do an old man a favor.”

  “If I can,” Ukihashi said, mystified.

  “I would like to set up a romantic liaison between you and Lord Asano. So that the two of you can bed each other, to put it bluntly.”

  The request was too shocking and offensive for Ukihashi to even consider. “Why…?”