The Samurai's Wife

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “I’m finished for now, Your Majesty,” Sano said.

  After leaving the emperor, Sano, Yoriki Hoshina, and Right Minister Ichijo gathered outside the Purple Dragon Hall.

  “I understand that you wish to see Lady Jokyden and Lady Asagao,” said Ichijo. “Shall I take you to them?”

  “Not yet,” Sano said, preferring to wait until he’d heard what Reiko had learned from the women. “I’d like to see the study hall and speak with His Majesty’s personal attendants.” Perhaps he would find witnesses to prove that Emperor Tomohito and Prince Momozono hadn’t been in the study hall. If so, he must then challenge their alibi, whatever the consequences. “Yoriki Hoshina can take me.”

  Ichijo hesitated, then said, “Is there anyone else with whom you would like to speak?”

  “Perhaps later. Many thanks for your assistance,” Sano said, politely releasing Ichijo.

  An opaque expression veiled the right minister’s features; he bowed in farewell. As Sano walked away with Hoshina, he had a vague, inexplicable sense of hidden dimensions to the case. In his mind floated the disturbing thought that he’d overlooked something important.

  8

  A garden of pines, willows, red maple, and flowering shrubs decorated the walled compound where the emperor’s consorts lived. As the old courtier walked Reiko through the compound, music and laughter floated in the warm, still air.

  “Her Highness the Chief Imperial Consort is amusing herself with her attendants,” the courtier said. “She has invited you to join them.”

  In a courtyard shaded by the wings of buildings, wisteria vines, bright with purple blossoms, climbed lattice frames. A painted mural depicting moonlit woods formed a backdrop for a canopied wooden platform. On this stood a young woman and man. She wore a lavish kimono of crimson silk; floral ornaments adorned her elaborate upswept hairstyle. He was dressed as a peasant in cotton robe and straw sandals. Nearby, three musicians played flute, samisen, and the wooden clappers used in Kabuki theater. Gentlemen and ladies in traditional court garb knelt on cushions in front of the makeshift stage, watching the drama unfolding there.

  “The time has come for us to die!” the actor proclaimed with exaggerated passion, seizing his partner’s hands.

  Sobbing, the woman lamented, “Though in this life we could not be together, in the next world we shall be husband and wife.”

  The pair stumbled through the imaginary dark forest, clinging together toward a ceramic urn that contained an immense, leafy bamboo plant.

  Reiko recognized the play as Love Suicides at Kamakura, popular in Edo’s theater district some time ago, based on the true story of a prostitute and a potter, forbidden lovers. Standing behind the audience, Reiko watched with amazement while the amateurish attempt at Kabuki—cheap, low-class entertainment—compromised the decorum of the Imperial Court.

  “That is the Honorable Lady Asagao,” the courtier murmured to Reiko, indicating the woman acting the role of the prostitute.

  Reiko’s amazement increased as she beheld the emperor’s consort. In her early twenties, Lady Asagao had a round face with rouged cheeks, a snub nose, and round eyes accentuated by painted lids. A generous bosom and curvy hips filled out her kimono. That a woman of her exalted status would stoop to such vulgarity!

  The actor playing her lover was handsome, with delicate features and a slender build. He led Lady Asagao to the bamboo plant and cried, “Let us make our end, in the shadow of this bamboo thicket!”

  He knelt by the urn. Lady Asagao began to sing:

  “Never have we known

  A single day of peace—

  Instead, the torment of an ill-starred romance.”

  She minced about the stage, fluttering her eyelids at the actor. Her voice was sweet, but she couldn’t carry the tune.

  “You must kill me with your hands,

  Release me from this torture,

  Then follow me into death!”

  Falling to her knees beside her lover, she wept, begging, “Please, hold me one last time before I die.”

  They embraced; a sigh rose from the audience. The actor’s hands fondled Lady Asagao, who eagerly returned the caresses. They seemed to be enjoying themselves a little too much, and their ardor embarrassed Reiko.

  The actor pulled a wooden dagger out of his sash. “Here’s our guarantee that our souls will never part!”

  “I’m ready. Be quick!” Lady Asagao closed her eyes and sat up straight.

  Weeping, the actor pretended to stab Lady Asagao’s chest. She screamed, collapsed, and writhed in simulated death throes. He held her until her moans subsided and she lay still. Then he exclaimed, “My beloved, I shall join you now!” and plunged the dagger into his own breast.

  The audience cheered and applauded. The doomed couple lay immobile for a moment, then stood and bowed, laughing. Now Lady Asagao caught sight of the newcomers. Her eyes lit. She hopped down from the platform and sashayed over to Reiko.

  “Honorable Lady Sano! I’m so happy to meet you,” she gushed. To Reiko’s escort, she said, “You’re dismissed.” He obediently departed. Lady Asagao giggled, while her eyes appraised Reiko with the calculating expression of a woman always on the lookout for admirers or rivals. “How marvelous that you’ve arrived in time for our play. What did you think of my performance?”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it before,” Reiko said, striving for a compromise between honesty and flattery.

  The dubious compliment provoked delighted laughter from Asagao. “My humble talent hardly deserves such praise! And from you, who have surely been entertained by Japan’s best actors. Oh, how I wish I could see them too!” Her full, red lips pouted prettily. “We’re so secluded here in the palace, and we must make do with our own little amusements, but we try to be authentic. The stage scenery was made by one of the best court artists. He also designed my costume.” She pirouetted in front of Reiko. “Does it become me?”

  “Yes, you look beautiful,” Reiko said. The kimono was a work of art, although Asagao would benefit from a darker color and simpler pattern to make her look slimmer.

  “Oh, thank you! You’re so kind.” Asagao preened. Beckoning to her audience, she called, “Come meet our guest from Edo.” Courtiers and ladies-in-waiting flocked around Reiko, smiling, bowing, and murmuring greetings while Asagao performed introductions. Asagao laid a proprietary hand upon the arm of the actor who’d played her lover onstage. “This is Lord Gojo. He’s one of the emperor’s secretaries.”

  The two exchanged a smiling, intimate glance. Then Asagao widened her eyes and exclaimed, “I’ve just had the most marvelous idea. Lady Sano must take a part in our play!”

  “Oh, I couldn’t.” Horrified, Reiko backed away.

  The group greeted Asagao’s idea with enthusiasm. Lord Gojo said, “She can be the heroine’s best friend.”

  “But I don’t know the lines,” Reiko protested, desperate to avoid making a spectacle of herself.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Asagao said. “You can read them from the script for now, and memorize them later.” She thrust out her lower lip, her expression reproachful. “You won’t disappoint us, will you?”

  The petulant whine in Asagao’s voice warned Reiko that Asagao was quick to take offense at anyone who denied her wishes. Reiko understood that if she refused to act, the emperor’s consort would cut short their visit and she would lose her chance to ask questions about the murder.

  “Of course I couldn’t disappoint you,” Reiko said with forced sincerity. “I’d be honored to act in your play.”

  “Wonderful!” Asagao laughed and clapped her hands, her good humor restored. Everyone else cheered. Asagao critically surveyed Reiko’s simple, knotted hairdo and sea-blue silk kimono printed with pale green ivy leaves. “We’ll have to find a costume for you later, but let’s give your face and hair some glamour. Come along!”

  Asagao and her ladies-in-waiting took Reiko to a corner of the courtyard, where a large parasol shaded a table that he
ld a mirror, brushes, combs, hair ornaments, and jars of makeup.

  “Bring us some wine, Gojo-san,” called Lady Asagao, “then go and prepare the stage for the first scene.”

  The young man complied. Two ladies-in-waiting began restyling Reiko’s hair, while the others drank wine and offered suggestions. Reiko sipped the sweet plum liquor, hoping it would ease her embarrassment. Asagao smeared a mixture of grease and white rice powder on Reiko’s face.

  “You must think we’re frivolous to spend our time this way,” Asagao said, pausing to gulp wine from her cup, “but there’s so little else to do here, and life gets terribly dull.”

  Reiko tried not to wince as the warm, thick makeup coated her skin, or recoil from the too-intimate contact with her new acquaintances. “I would have thought that the shocking incident in the Pond Garden offered some diversion.”

  Asagao looked perplexed; then her face cleared. “Oh, you mean the death of Left Minister Konoe.” She dismissed the murder with a flick of her fingers. “That was ages ago. The excitement is past. You probably think I’m callous for having fun during the mourning period, but I refuse to suffer months of gloom and boredom, even though my father says I should.”

  She added, “My father is Right Minister Ichijo.”

  Reiko remembered that Ichijo was the man serving as intermediary in Sano’s relations with the Imperial Court, and that he’d become its chief official after the death of Konoe. Apparently, he had followed the ancient practice by which nobles achieved dominance over the throne: intermarriage with the imperial family.

  “I see no reason to grieve for the left minister,” Asagao said, picking up a brush and applying pink tint around Reiko’s eyelids, “especially since I’m glad he’s dead.”

  Her blunt admission hung in the air like a bad smell. The ladies-in-waiting suddenly became very busy refilling the wine cups and applying camellia oil to Reiko’s hair. Reiko was too startled to speak, but Asagao continued as if unaware of how her words might reflect upon her: “That horrible old tyrant! Do you know what he did to me?”

  “No, what did he do?” Reiko said, hiding her eagerness.

  “He decided I was spending too much money,” Asagao said, puffed up with indignation. “So he reduced my allowance. I was to have no new clothes or amusements for the rest of the year. I, the emperor’s consort, was to live like a pauper!”

  “It must have been very unpleasant for you.” Reiko marveled at her luck in having a suspect so ready to volunteer information. She hinted, “I wouldn’t blame you if you had decided to take revenge against the left minister.”

  “And that’s just what I did,” Asagao declared, swallowing another drink.

  Her words had begun to slur, and her eyes had a glassy shine. Perhaps intoxication had loosened her tongue, Reiko thought, but Asagao seemed the kind of person who often neglected to think before she spoke. What a contrast between the emperor’s mother and his consort! The ladies-in-waiting were pulling Reiko’s hair upward and jabbing in pins, but Reiko, intent on Asagao, hardly noticed the pain in her scalp.

  “First I went to my father, but he said there was nothing he could do; Left Minister Konoe outranked him.” Asagao applied rouge to Reiko’s cheeks with a sponge. “Then I complained to Tomohito. But Tomohito said I should go along with the left minister and stop wasting money.

  “I begged. I cried. I was so angry! Why should he listen to a mere kuge official instead of me? Oh, how I hated the left minister for coming between us!” Asagao’s voice rose to a querulous pitch.

  Reiko nodded and murmured sympathetically. “What did you do next?” she said, her heartbeat quickening with anticipation.

  A moment passed in silence as Asagao dipped a small brush into red pigment, moved closer, and began painting Reiko’s lips, frowning in concentration. Her features, magnified by proximity, seemed stronger, rendering her less giddily feminine. Reiko stifled an urge to flinch. In Asagao’s veins ran the blood of ancestors who had ruled Japan from behind the emperor’s throne. To satisfy her appetite for power, might she have studied the martial arts in secret, exercising the spiritual energy that existed in every human, until she acquired the force of kiai?

  Could the spirit cry have issued from that soft, sensuous mouth?

  Asagao drew back, set down the brush, and drained her wine cup again. “I didn’t do anything,” she said, her expression sulky. “There was no way to get back at the old miser. When he died, I thanked the gods, because now my father is in charge, and he lets me have everything I want.”

  Disappointment flooded Reiko. She chastised herself for expecting a confession. Lady Asagao might lack Lady Jokyden’s intelligence; yet her vanity indicated an instinct for self-preservation. However, Reiko couldn’t quite picture Asagao as the killer. Despite her obvious antipathy toward the victim, Asagao appeared basically weak and flighty. It was easier to believe she had benefited from someone else’s crime. But Reiko couldn’t eliminate her as a suspect without establishing the important missing fact about Asagao.

  “Did you see anything on the night of the murder that might reveal who killed the left minister?” Reiko asked.

  “How could I have?” Asagao looked puzzled. “I was nowhere near the Pond Garden.”

  “Oh? Where were you?” Reiko said casually.

  Alarm leapt in Asagao’s eyes. Reiko heard a simultaneous intake of breath from the ladies-in-waiting. They sat frozen and stoic, heads bowed.

  “I don’t remember. It was such a long time ago.” Asagao’s gaze skittered away from Reiko, then back again, bright with the need to convince. “Wait!” she cried. “I was in the summer pavilion, with my ladies-in-waiting. We were drinking wine and playing the samisen.” She looked to the other women, her expression demanding confirmation. “Weren’t we?”

  With uncertain smiles, the women nodded; yet Reiko didn’t need to see their guilty reactions to know they were lying. Yoriki Hoshina’s report had placed the ladies-in-waiting in their quarters together just before the murder, not with Lady Asagao. And if Lady Jokyden had been walking around the pavilion as she claimed, she would have noticed the lights and noise of a party. The evidence supported Jokyden’s story and refuted Asagao’s.

  The consort huffed, “All this talk about murder upsets me terribly. Let’s have no more of it.” She inspected Reiko, and a pleased smile banished her nervousness. “I think you’re ready for the stage.” She held up the mirror so Reiko could see herself. “How do you like it?”

  Reiko stared at her reflection, aghast. Her hair was sculpted into mounds and coils studded with gaudy floral ornaments. Exaggerated brows arched on her forehead; pink half-moons colored her eyelids. A circle of rouge dotted each cheek, and large, curving red lips masked her own. She looked the exact picture of a low-class courtesan.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she murmured, cringing in shame. Asagao’s handiwork disgraced her rank, samurai heritage, and natural modesty. Reiko knew that many men admired the style of prostitutes, but Sano would be horrified to see her this way.

  Asagao laughed in delight. “You look beautiful!” The ladies-in-waiting chorused their agreement. “Come along!”

  The women ushered Reiko to the stage, which now sported a new backdrop showing a street in the pleasure quarter where the play’s doomed lovers had met. Lord Gojo and the other courtiers positioned a large wooden cage that represented the window of a brothel. Asagao, Reiko, and the ladies-in-waiting sat inside this. Someone handed Reiko a silk-covered book.

  “We’re ready. Let’s begin!” Asagao cried.

  Courtiers strolled back and forth in front of the window cage, cracking lewd jokes and ogling the women.

  “Oh, how this sordid life saddens my spirit,” Asagao recited in a tragic voice. “I wish my darling Jihei could buy my freedom and marry me!” She opened Reiko’s playbook, whispered, “Your character’s name is Snowdrop. Start reading here,” and pointed to the correct line.

  “How unfortunate that you’ve fallen in lo
ve with a poor potter who already has a wife,” Reiko read in a barely audible voice. As a leering courtier approached her, she continued, “Ah, master—the cherry blossoms are in full bloom tonight. Would you partake of their sweetness?”

  Flirtatious banter followed. Ready to die of humiliation, Reiko blushed under her makeup. The daughter of a magistrate and wife of the shogun’s ssakan-sama, behaving thus! She longed to rush off the stage, yet determination held her captive. Lady Asagao had reason and probable opportunity to commit murder, and still no alibi. If Reiko wanted to find evidence against Asagao, she must stay in the good graces of the emperor’s consort.

  The play progressed. Between lines, Asagao nudged Reiko and whispered happily, “Isn’t this fun?”

  9

  The merciless afternoon sun illuminated the tile roof and half-timbered walls of the imperial study hall, a small structure within the conglomerate of buildings that comprised Emperor Tomohito’s residence. While Sano interviewed the emperor’s attendants inside the hall, Right Minister Ichijo stood on the shaded veranda, eavesdropping through the open window. Watching several of Sano’s troops pacing through the landscaped grounds between the study hall and the Pond Garden, he was secretly anxious because the ssakan-sama hadn’t questioned him regarding Left Minister Konoe’s murder.

  Was Sano unaware of his relationship with Konoe? Ichijo had no doubt the metsuke records described it in detail, and couldn’t believe that Sano hadn’t targeted him as a suspect. Sano had learned that Emperor Tomohito, Prince Momozono, Lady Jokyden, and Lady Asagao had been away from their quarters, their whereabouts unknown, at the time of the murder; why didn’t he also know that the same incriminating circumstance applied to Ichijo?

  Still, Sano’s ignorance was a stroke of good fortune, because Ichijo knew that if Sano found out about him and accused him of murder, he would be convicted; virtually all trials ended in a guilty verdict. Ichijo envisioned his distinguished career ending at the public execution ground, amid uproarious scandal. All morning he’d hovered around Sano, listening to the interviews in constant fear that someone would tell Sano what many in the court knew and might reveal if asked the right questions. Although Sano didn’t need his services at present, Ichijo was too anxious to keep track of the investigation to force himself to leave.