Red Chrysanthemum (8 page)

Reiko caught hold of it. “This belongs to me.” She fondled him while he moaned. “I never give up anything that’s mine.”

Lord Mori seized Reiko’s hands in an attempt to wrench them off him. “Leave me alone,” he ordered.

Yet his voice and his actions lacked force. Reiko knelt. She put her mouth on him. As she licked and teased, he collapsed to the floor. She laughed with triumph as she positioned herself on top of him. “You can’t resist me. You’ll do what I want.”

She spread her legs, took him inside her, and moved up and down. “We’ll be together always. Never mind your wife.”

Although Lord Mori said, “No! Stop. Please!” he heaved and thrust at her. Lady Mori wept because her husband was so enthralled by Reiko that not even the threat of war could break her hold on him.

“You’ll be the ruin of me!” he cried. His hand fumbled under the bed near them; he pulled out the sword that he kept there in case an intruder should attack him in his sleep. He brandished it at Reiko. “Go away, or I’ll kill you!”

Reiko stayed. She moved faster, her body pumping, her breasts bouncing. Her expression turned murderous. She grabbed the sword from Lord Mori and held it to his throat. “If you leave me, I’ll kill you!” she shouted. “If I can’t have you, no one will!”

Lord Mori recoiled in fright, but he uttered wild bellows of passion. Lady Mori knew her plan had failed because Reiko wouldn’t cooperate and he was too weak to defy her. Armies could overrun his provinces, and he would lie with Reiko again and again until they slaughtered him. Lady Mori had lost him forever. Sobbing, she fled to her room, where she drank wine until her grief faded into stupor. She slept until morning, when her maid awoke her and told her that her husband was dead.

6

“You’re lying! My wife and Lord Mori were never lovers!” Sano had forced himself to hear Lady Mori’s tale until the end, but he could no longer hold back his violent denials. “The child she’s carrying isn’t his. And neither is our son!”

He didn’t believe a word she’d said. This was slander of the most outrageous kind. But his inner voice whispered that he must objectively consider each witness’s statement even if it incriminated his wife.

“I apologize for giving you offense, but I have told you the truth,” Lady Mori said sadly. “I swear on my honor.”

“Your honor is worth nothing in this case,” Sano retorted, for here at last was another suspect besides Reiko. “According to your story, you were at your husband’s private chambers last night.”

Lady Mori visibly braced herself against him. “Yes.”

“You saw my wife on the veranda, spying through the window on Lord Mori.”

“No. I was the one spying,” Lady Mori said, nervous but insistent. “She was inside, with him, just as I described.”

Sano countered her with Reiko’s version of events: “You and my wife were friends. That night you invited her to dinner. You had a party.”

Frosty politeness stiffened Lady Mori’s features. “There was no party. And she was not my friend, she was my husband’s mistress. It was he who invited her here.”

Sano speculated on what might have happened that Reiko had been unaware of. “You suspected that she had an ulterior motive for befriending you. When she left the party, you followed her. You watched her watching your husband. Did you think she was spying on him for me, for political reasons?”

Lady Mori shook her head. “I watched her seduce him. I heard her threaten to kill him.”

“Maybe she had too much to drink at your party.” Sano didn’t know how much forethought had gone into framing Reiko, but he was acting on the assumption that she had been framed, and Lady Mori was looking to be the culprit. “You stabbed and castrated your husband while he was asleep. You arranged Lady Reiko to look as if she’d done it.”

“No! That’s not how it was!” Lady Mori cried in horror. “I loved my husband. I would never have hurt him. And I never touched your wife. She murdered him.”

Sano lost his temper because even though her story was ludicrous, many people might believe it. Some would welcome a chance to hurt him by persecuting Reiko. “Don’t lie to me!” he shouted. “I want to know what really happened.”

He seized Lady Mori, yanked her to her feet, and grasped her shoulders. She whimpered in protest. Her attendants gasped in horror at seeing their mistress treated as a common criminal. Hirata moved to restrain Sano.

“Honorable Chamberlain,” he warned.

Sano ordinarily didn’t believe in using force on suspects because it too often produced false confessions and he disliked abusing his power. He hated to intimidate a helpless woman. But he couldn’t let Lady Mori spread her slander about his wife. Not only could it doom Reiko, but it could destroy him. Sano remembered his talk with General Isogai and the two elders. The suspicion that someone connected to him had murdered one of Lord Matsudaira’s chief allies was trouble of the kind they’d warned him to avoid.

“Tell me the truth!” he demanded, shaking Lady Mori.

Her head snapped back and forth; she sobbed in terror. But she cried, “I did!”

She seemed to believe her own lies. That would make them sound convincing to anyone she told. Sano had to make her recant. “You killed your husband. You framed my wife. Confess!”

“No! Please don’t hurt me!”

Anger consumed Sano. He hated Lady Mori for trying to hurt Reiko. He was furious at Reiko for putting him and herself in this disastrous situation. Lady Mori was a convenient target, and he drew back his fist to strike her.

Hirata caught his arm. “Don’t!”

Her attendants shrieked. Marume and Fukida pulled Sano away from Lady Mori. She dissolved to the floor in a fit of tears. The women surrounded her, comforting her. Sano shook off his men. He breathed hard, appalled by his own behavior. Less than an hour into this investigation, and he’d lost control. After so many murder cases, he should be able to discipline himself. But his wife hadn’t been the primary suspect in those other cases. He’d not had to prove her innocence while other suspects heaped guilt upon her.

An angry male voice demanded, “What have you done to my mother?”

Sano turned and saw a samurai at the door. He was tall and lithe, in his mid-twenties, dressed in a cloak damp with rain, his two swords at his waist. His face was strikingly handsome, with sensitive features shadowed by consternation. Lady Mori rose, ran to him, and wept against his chest. He focused his dark, brooding eyes on Sano.

“Honorable Chamberlain. May I ask what’s going on?”

“You must be Enju,” said Sano.

“Yes.” Lord Mori’s adopted son waited in silence for Sano to answer his question. Despite his mother’s description of the lively, young flirt on the pleasure boat, he was evidently a person of few words. Long, thick eyelashes veiled his gaze.

“Your father has been murdered,” Sano said.

“So I’ve heard.”

“Where have you been?”

“On business in Osaka. I just arrived home.”

Lady Mori cried, “The chamberlain thinks I did it!”

Enju frowned at Sano. “That’s not what Akera-san told me. He says your wife killed my father.”

“She did! Please make him understand that I’m innocent,” Lady Mori said, clinging to Enju.

“On what grounds do you accuse my mother?” Enju asked.

“She had the opportunity to murder your father and frame my wife,” Sano said.

“Excuse me, but have you given her a chance to tell her own version of events?” A current of hostility ran beneath Enju’s calm voice.

“Yes indeed.” Sano felt his temper rising again. “She has made a ridiculous claim that my wife was Lord Mori’s mistress and killed him during a lover’s quarrel.” Sano briefly explained.

“There you have it, then.”

Sano noted that Enju had remarkable assurance for so young a man addressing a high official. He seemed undisturbed by Lord Mori’s death, and although he acted willing to blame Reiko, he hadn’t actually claimed that his mother was innocent. This struck Sano as odd.

“How do you know what happened last night?” Sano asked. “By your own admission, you weren’t here.”

Calculation hooded Enju’s expression. “I saw my father cavorting with your wife often enough. It was no secret.”
To anyone but you,
said his tone. He shrugged. “Their affair and my mother’s attempt to stop it obviously drove Lady Reiko to murder.”

It sounded to Sano as if the young man had decided to confirm Lady Mori’s damning story about Reiko for some reason other than that he believed it. But Enju was the kind of cool, self-possessed witness who would be hard to shake. Sano knew that mother and son might convince too many people that Reiko was guilty. Yet Enju’s behavior was suspicious, and he represented another chance for Sano to exonerate her.

“Someone was obviously driven to murder, but not my wife,” Sano said. “I understand that you’re Lord Mori’s heir.”

“That’s correct.”

“And now that he’s dead, you inherit his title and his wealth,” Sano continued. “You’ll govern his provinces and command all his retainers.”

“Yes.” Caution narrowed Enju’s gaze.

“In other words, you’re the person who benefits the most from his death.”

Lady Mori gasped. “Are you accusing my son of murder?” She beheld Sano with shocked disbelief that turned to outrage. “He would never commit such a sin against filial piety. He loved his father!”

“Calm yourself, Mother. He can’t pin the blame on me.” Unfazed, Enju countered Sano’s accusation: “I didn’t kill Lord Mori. He adopted me, he educated me, he made me the man I am. I would have killed myself before I ever hurt him.”

“According to your mother, he abandoned you as well as her for a mistress and her child,” Sano said. “If she’s telling the truth, you had that reason to want him gone, in addition to the fact that you would inherit his estate.”

Not only were mother and son in league to protect each other by lying about Reiko, but maybe they’d conspired to rid themselves of Lord Mori.

Enju smiled, conveying pity for Sano. “The fact is that I couldn’t have killed him. I’ve been traveling for the past four days. My attendants will verify that they spent last night with me in Totsuka.” This was a village on the Tokaido, the highway that connected Edo to points west. “They’ll verify that we rode home this morning.”

His attendants would say whatever he wanted, Sano didn’t doubt. Sano sensed unrevealed dimensions in the young man, but for now Enju had an alibi. Sano felt an urge to beat Enju until his composure shattered and the truth came out of him. One thing that prevented Sano was the knowledge that if he started beating Enju, he might not be able to stop, and killing one of the other suspects would do Reiko no good.

A second was that he had other issues to take up with Enju and Lady Mori; namely, the missing boy and what Reiko had observed in Lord Mori’s bedchamber prior to his death.

One of Sano’s guards appeared in the doorway. “Pardon me, Honorable Chamberlain, but there’s a message from the shogun and Lord Matsudaira. They want to see you in the palace immediately.”

Sano rode toward Edo Castle with Hirata and his entourage. The rain had started up again, and their horses’ hooves splashed in puddles along the avenue through the
daimyo
district. Pedestrians were few. The sentries hid in their booths outside the estates; dripping banners printed with clan crests sagged over the portals. The castle was a massive gray blur towering behind a waterfall.

“What do you think Lord Matsudaira wants?” Hirata asked.

“Probably the usual business,” Sano said.

Lord Matsudaira summoned him at least once a day, to extract reassurances that the government was running smoothly and learn whether Sano had heard of any new plots against him. But Sano had an uneasy feeling about this particular summons.

He recalled a question that had occurred to him when Hirata had brought Reiko home but he hadn’t had a chance to ask. “How did you happen to be at Lord Mori’s estate this morning?”

The high stone walls of Edo Castle loomed in the near distance. Soldiers in the guard house atop the main gate had spotted Sano’s procession; they hurried out to let it inside.

“It’s a long story,” Hirata said.

“I’ll make time to hear it,” Sano said, hoping that Hirata’s story could provide a different perspective on the murder, counteract Lady Mori’s and Enju’s statements, and help Reiko.

7

The Disciple’s Tale

GENROKU YEAR 11, MONTH 2(MARCH 1698)

Dawn lit the mist that shrouded the Yoshino Mountains, a fifteen-day journey west of Edo. Steps cut into a cliff led up to a remote temple that was home to a small Buddhist sect. The temple bell echoed across the pine forests. Eagles soared above the pagoda whose tiered roof vanished into the sky. Inside the temple precinct, Hirata circled an expanse of bare ground. Wearing a white jacket and trousers, his feet bare, he raised his hands in preparation for combat.

Opposite him circled his martial arts teacher. Ozuno, an itinerant priest, had a stern, weathered face; his gray hair was topped by a round, black skull cap. He wore a tattered kimono, loose breeches, cloth leggings, and frayed straw sandals. His lame right leg, his eighty years, and his unkempt appearance disguised his identity as an expert in the mystic martial art of
dim-mak
and a member of the secret society that had preserved it for four centuries.

Hirata had met Ozuno during a murder investigation and persuaded Ozuno to take him as a disciple. Ozuno had made Hirata commit to an indefinite period of training, then swear not to reveal that he was a pupil. The ancients who’d invented
dim-mak
meant for it to be used honorably, in self-defense and in battle, but they feared that it would be used for evil purposes. Hence, they passed down their knowledge to only a few trusted students. Hirata was forbidden to use
dim-mak
except in cases of extreme emergency, or to reveal the techniques to anyone except his own disciples someday. Hirata had agreed, because his future depended on mastering them.

His left thigh had been seriously wounded in the line of duty four years ago. Once an expert fighter, he’d become a cripple. He wanted more than anything to regain his strength and prowess, his manhood and honor. This training was his only hope. But it had proved to be more than he’d bargained for.