Laura Joh Rowland - Sano Ichiro Samurai Detective 01 - Shinju

by Shin

  "Noriyoshi's enemies?" she said in response to Sano's question after they were settled again. "Which ones do you want to know about? All of them, or just the worst?"

  "Start with the worst."

  Wisteria frowned, as if trying to decide who should head the list. "Kikunojo," she said finally.

  "Kikunojo?" Sano repeated in surprise. "Not the Kabuki actor? Why would he have killed Noriyoshi?"

  She nodded, then shrugged. "Noriyoshi sometimes. accepted money from people in exchange for keeping their secrets.

  Blackmail. The ugly, unspoken word hung between them. Sano saw Wisteria flush and pitied her for having to expose her friend's flaws. But the flush reminded him of the way a woman looked when sensually excited, as did the way her breath quickened. His own excitement mounted. To add to his discomfort, the couple next door had abandoned their duet. A rhythmic thumping shook the thin walls. Sano looked away when Wisteria smiled briefly at him. She probably meant the smile as an apology for the noise, but to Sano, it said, "Wouldn't you like to do what they're doing?"

  To cover his embarrassment, Sano asked quickly, "So Noriyoshi was paid for his silence. By who else besides Kikunojo?"

  "One other that I know of. A sumo wrestler, but I don't know his name."

  Maybe one of Noriyoshi's other friends would know. "Did Noriyoshi collect a large payment shortly before his death?" Sano asked, thinking of the gold he'd found in the artist's room.

  Wisteria's eyes misted. "Maybe. He said he was about to come into enough money to pay off my debt to the Heavenly Garden, and to start his own gallery. We were going to run it together. He even had a building picked out. One with rooms behind it where we could live. But I don't know if he ever got the money."

  Sano decided not to tell her about the gold that Cherry Eater had taken. It would only hurt her. Besides, the sum he'd seen, while considerable, wasn't enough for such an enterprise. Noriyoshi must have been expecting much more. Maybe Kikunojo had killed him to avoid having to pay.

  "Kikunojo might very well have murdered Noriyoshi," Wisteria said bitterly, echoing Sano's thoughts. "He threatened to do it. And Noriyoshi's other enemies-" She reeled off a long list of people, both samurai and commoners, that Noriyoshi had owed money to, offended, or cheated. "I don't think they cared enough to kill him."

  Here at last was some information he could take to Magistrate Ogyu. Bowing, Sano said, "My thanks, Lady Wisteria. I'll do everything in my power to bring Noriyoshi's murderer to justice."

  He rose to leave. and found himself unable to move away from Wisteria. Her eyes drew him into their dark depths; her body reached for him without moving. He gazed at her helplessly, longingly.

  "Wait." Wisteria caught his sleeve. "Don't leave me alone."

  She tried to pull him back down to the floor. "Stay with me tonight."

  Sano pulled away. His manhood, already erect, now sprang to full, demanding life at the thought of lying with her. He saw now that for the whole time he'd spent with her, she'd been subtly, deliberately seducing him. His whole body ached for her. But there was no way he could afford her price.

  "I'm sorry, my lady," he managed to say, removing his sleeve from her grasp. "Please." Please don't make me humiliate myself by admitting that I'm too poor to have you."

  She stood, playing the fingers of one hand down the length of his arm. "No, you don't understand. I ask nothing of you." Her other hand stroked his chest. "Nothing except. you."

  "Why?" Sano couldn't believe that a yujo who kept company with the wealthiest, most powerful men in Edo would want him. Who cares why, his body asked as his skin tingled under her touch.

  "Because with you, I don't have to hide my sorrow."

  She stepped away from him. With a graceful gesture, she slipped the knot of her sash. Her kimono opened, then fell away from her body. Naked, she stood before him. Her breasts were small and round. Her arms and legs were slender, her skin a flawless golden ivory. At her shaven pubis, trademark of all yujo, the delicate cleft of her womanhood showed. Beneath her perfume, Sano could smell her natural scent, pungent and intoxicating. She took his hands and lifted them to her breasts.

  A moan escaped Sano when his fingers touched her nipples. Then he recoiled as she closed her mouth over his. Like other samurai, he'd experienced the pleasures of sex often enough- with his neighbors' maids, or with girls he met in the entertainment districts of Nihonbashi. But he'd never tried seppun, the exotic practice of touching mouths that had been introduced to Japan by the banished foreign barbarians.

  "It won't hurt you," she murmured, her breath warm against his lips. Amusement shimmered in her voice.

  At first the slippery wetness of her lips repelled him. Then his desire flared, and he opened his mouth to admit her probing tongue. Who would have thought that this outrageous exchange of breath and saliva could be so arousing? He pulled away just long enough to cast off his garments, hating to take his mouth from hers, his hands from their exploration of her breasts and buttocks.

  They sank onto the futon together, and she pressed her body to his with an ardor that surprised Sano. He'd heard many stories about yujo: their expertise, the elaborate games they played with costumes, toys, pillow talk, and aphrodisiacs, their false but flattering cries of ecstasy. But unless he was much mistaken, her sighs and arching back were not mere theatrics. He saw no cold mechanical technique in the way she caressed his chest and loins and grasped his erection-just a woman's simple and ancient desire for a man. And she couldn't have simulated the ardor that his hands read in her hard nipples, in the wetness between her legs. For a moment he wondered why she differed from other yujo. Was this her special talent, her ability to want the men she bedded? Maybe she was trying to bury her sorrow over Noriyoshi's death in physical pleasure with someone whom she had no obligation to entertain. The reason didn't matter. Her apparently real lust for him brought Sano to the brink of climax. Almost swooning with pleasure, he entered her.

  And stopped thinking altogether.

  Sano had slipped so easily from wakefulness into sleep that he'd hardly been aware of the transition. Now he awoke with a jolt to the sound of quiet sobbing. He sat upright, throwing off the quilts. He looked toward the corner, where candle flame made a hollow of light.

  Wrapped in a white robe, Wisteria knelt, her profile toward him, before a low table. On it she had arranged among the fruit, flowers, and guttering candles a collection of small objects. She bowed her head over them, lips moving as tears ran down her face. Sano crawled off the futon and moved to her side. He saw a cotton headband on the table, with a tobacco pipe and a hand of playing cards. The cards, each with a miniature shunga on the back, seemed hardly suitable for a Buddhist altar. Then he understood. Noriyoshi had painted the cards; the headband and pipe were his. Wisteria, in her white mourning clothes, was praying for Noriyoshi's spirit.

  Both moved and embarrassed, Sano tried to think of something to say. He wasn't used to seeing such an open display of grief; most people kept their feelings hidden, even at funerals. Maybe he should let her mourn in privacy. But he couldn't leave without somehow acknowledging what had happened between them. He laid a tentative hand on her shoulder.

  "Go to your new home in peace, Noriyoshi," Wisteria murmured. "We will meet again someday." She turned to Sano. Her round eyes were wells of misery, her nose and mouth swollen from weeping.

  Sano felt her pain echo inside his own chest. "I'm sorry," he said inadequately. He tried to take her in his arms, but she shrank from his touch.

  "My only real friend is dead!" she cried, sudden anger sparkling through her tears. "And how have I honored him? By bedding a yoriki!" A choked sob burst from deep within her. "You, who care nothing for other people's pain!

  "You come here asking questions and acting so concerned. But there is no justice for lowly peasants, who cannot pay or influence our rulers to provide it. You'll go back to your desk and write up a pretty little official version of what happened to Noriyoshi. Shinju. Nice and neat and
easy. No inquiry to make more work for you or your superiors, or to trouble the family of that girl, whoever she was. You'll stamp Noriyoshi's disgrace with your seal and your silence. While the one who killed him goes free!"

  Although Sano knew that grief and self-disgust had prompted her attack on him, the words hurt. He knew how close he'd come-how close he still was-to doing exactly as she predicted.

  "I do care," he said. "And I don't intend to let Noriyoshi's killer go free." As he spoke, the thought of Magistrate Ogyu, Katsuragawa Shundai, and his father made him wince inwardly.

  Wisteria covered her face with both hands. "Leave me," she whispered.

  Sano dressed quietly and let himself out the door. In the salon of the Palace of the Heavenly Garden, he found the party still in progress; outside, Naka-no-cho still pulsed with life, its crowds and gaiety undiminished beneath the night sky. But the main gate was closed. Sano, on his way to the public stables where he'd left his horse, gazed at it in dismay. He'd stayed with Wisteria much longer than he'd planned, and now he, along with everyone else in Yoshiwara, was locked in for the night.

  He trudged toward the poorer section of the quarter and a modest inn that he remembered from his student days. There, for an exorbitant price that would use up all the money he'd brought, he could catch a few hours' rest while he waited for dawn and the opening of the gates.

  Later, as he lay on a straw pallet listening to the boozy snores of nine other men who shared the room with him, he experienced a new uneasiness. He recognized it as guilt for having taken his pleasure from a lonely and bereaved woman. The memory of her grief made him wish he'd had the strength to refuse her. Their coupling hadn't brought her comfort. Now he felt as if he owed her compensation for the extra pain he'd caused.

  That compensation could cost him his family's honor. But what had he to offer her except his best effort to bring Noriyoshi's killer to justice?

  Chapter 8

  This time Sano's interview with Magistrate Ogyu took place not in the Court of Justice, but in Ogyu's private office. The morning sun streamed through the translucent windows, dispelling any resemblance to the courtroom's dim gloominess. No doshin, defendants, or witnesses were present, only Ogyu's elderly manservant, who shuffled about serving tea. Sano didn't have to face Ogyu across the white sand of truth like a condemned man awaiting his sentence. They knelt on silk cushions like any two officials engaged in a civilized meeting. But Sano still felt as if he were on trial.

  "Honorable Magistrate, I respectfully request your permission to continue the investigation into the deaths of Niu Yukiko and Noriyoshi," he said.

  He'd debated whether to approach Ogyu today, or wait until he had more facts to support his case. Guilt had finally prompted him to speak now: candor was the least he owed his superior.

  Ogyu said nothing. Instead he cradled his tea bowl in both withered hands, sniffing the steam that rose from it. Today he wore his ceremonial clothes-a black haori with broad padded shoulders over a black kimono stamped with circular gold family crests. The stark garments made his skin seem especially pallid and desiccated. Against the wall mural's colorful landscape, he looked like an ancient pen-and-ink ancestor portrait.

  "I am glad that you came to see me," he said finally. "It appears we have much to discuss."

  Sano tried to draw hope from the neutral statement. "Yes, Honorable Magistrate?"

  "There is the small matter of a report that you have written." Ogyu glanced down at an unfurled scroll on the desk before him.

  With foreboding, Sano recognized his own writing and seal. It was the report classifying the deaths as suspicious.

  "I am afraid this document does not reflect the understanding that we reached at our last meeting," Ogyu continued.

  Sano's heart plummeted. Ogyu's displeasure with the report would make him unreceptive to any suggestion.

  "Also, you have issued a cremation order for Noriyoshi in defiance of the law which states that shinju participants must endure public exposure as punishment for their crime. What have you to say for yourself, Yoriki Sano?"

  "Please let me explain," Sano said. He could almost feel the floor caving in under him. "When I heard of the deaths, I thought they required further investigation. That's why I wrote that report." Seeing Ogyu frown, he rushed on. He didn't mention the cremation order and fervently hoped Ogyu would drop the subject. "Forgive my presumptiousness; I should not have disobeyed your orders. But now that I've made some inquiries, I believe that Yukiko and Noriyoshi were murdered. I beg your permission to finish my investigation, to find their murderer and bring him to justice." He didn't think it necessary to remind the magistrate that while the murder of a peasant might not warrant much official concern, that of a daimyo's daughter couldn't go ignored.

  The frown lines in Ogyu's forehead deepened, whether in surprise or irritation, Sano couldn't tell. "And how do you know this?" he asked.

  Sano drank some tea to calm himself. "I've learned that Noriyoshi didn't like women, which means he probably would not have killed himself for the love of one. And he had enemies. At least one of them hated him enough to kill him."

  "And who might that be?" Ogyu sipped from his own bowl, then motioned for the servant to refill both it and Sano's.

  "Kikunojo, the Kabuki actor."

  "How did you learn of this. enemy?" The pause before the word conveyed Ogyu's skepticism.

  "I spoke with Noriyoshi's close friend, a woman named Wisteria," Sano answered. Giving Wisteria's name to lend credibility to his story, he nevertheless hoped he wouldn't have to explain what she did for a living.

  But apparently Ogyu knew. Rumor said that he still frequented Yoshiwara's pleasure houses, despite his age. He sighed and quoted an old proverb. "Two rare things: square eggs, and a yujo's sincerity."

  "I think she was telling the truth," Sano said. Inadvertently he remembered last night. Wisteria's grief; her plea to him to arrest Kikunojo for her friend's murder; her passion. Sano's blood stirred. He forced himself back to the present.

  Ogyu was shaking his head. "Yoriki Sano." How can you be so gullible? his tone implied. How dare you waste my time with such nonsense?

  "Magistrate, when I went to the morgue, I saw a large bruise on Noriyoshi's head, as if someone had struck him," Sano said with growing desperation. "And he-didn't look as though he'd drowned." This was dangerous ground. What if Ogyu wanted to know more about his visit to the morgue?

  Fortunately Ogyu's refined sensibilities kept him from taking up the subject. He made a moue of distaste and said, "We will not talk of such things here."

  Having already presented his best arguments, Sano could think of nothing else to say. If Ogyu dismissed two and refused to discuss the other, what hope had he of succeeding?

  Now Ogyu cleared his throat and signaled for another round of tea. Sano braced himself for a circumspect rebuke, perhaps an allusion to his patron, Katsuragawa Shundai. However, he soon found himself following the magistrate's convoluted thought trail down a completely different path.

  "There are many lessons to be learned from the animal kingdom," Ogyu said. "When the tiger goes to the stream, the deer wait until he has drunk his fill and departed before they go to drink. When the hawk takes flight, small creatures hide until he has passed."

  Sano nodded, waiting for him to get to the point.

  "When the dragonfly spreads his splendid wings, other insects dare not approach, lest they arouse his wrath," Ogyu finished. He paused to let his meaning sink in.

  This last scenario bore no resemblance to nature, but Sano got the message anyway.

  "So you've heard of my visit to the Nius," he said. The Nius, with their dragonfly family crest and their overshadowing power.

  Ogyu winced at such bluntness. "Yoriki Sano, do you really need to be reminded of the dangers of offending a great daimyo family? Lady Niu called on me personally to complain about your intrusion." His voice rose to its highest, most querulous pitch. "What stupidity, what foolhardiness could dr
ive you to inflict yourself upon the Nius in such an impertinent manner, at such an unfortunate time?" A livid patch appeared on each of his sallow cheeks, and his eyes narrowed.

  Sano accepted the insults stoically, although each one tore at his samurai spirit. His face burned with the shame of having angered his superior to the point of open fury. Through his misery he felt the cold, equally shameful touch of fear. What would Ogyu do to punish him? But the inquisitive, detached part of his mind wondered why Ogyu was so anxious to halt the investigation and placate the Nius.

  "The Nius received me with all possible graciousness," he said bravely. In spite of Ogyu's displeasure, he still thought he'd done right to question them. He only regretted learning so little, "Lady Niu didn't appear at all offended. And why should she be? All I did was ask a few questions, which she and young Lord Niu seemed glad to answer. Furthermore, if Miss Yukiko was murdered, why should the Nius object to an investigation? Wouldn't they want to cooperate so that the murderer can be found? Wouldn't they want justice-vengeance-for their family honor?"