The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria (42 page)

What do you mean I can’t come in?” Hirata demanded.

“The palace is off limits to the
sōsakan-sama
and everyone in his retinue,” said the guard stationed at the door of the Edo Castle women’s quarters. “The shogun has ordered you kept out.”

Hirata stared in amazement and horror. That Sano had been barred from the palace meant the shogun thought him guilty of murder and treason, even though he’d received a chance to prove he was innocent. Tokugawa Tsunayoshi feared Sano as a threat to himself! This seemed the first stage of an inevitable downfall for Sano and everyone associated with him.

“I just stopped by to see Lady Midori,” Hirata said. “Will you tell her to come out?”

The guard shut the door in Hirata’s face. Hirata stood momentarily paralyzed by helpless outrage, then hurried around the building. The grounds lay vacant in the wet afternoon. Raindrops glittered on bare branches, stippled the pond, and pelted Hirata as he trudged through damp grass to the window of Midori’s chamber. Taking shelter beneath the eaves, he rapped on the wooden bars that screened the window.

“Midori-
san
!” he called.

The shutters and paper pane inside the window opened. Midori appeared, her eyes huge and scared. “Hirata-
san
!” she exclaimed in a whisper.

“I’m sorry I frightened you,” Hirata whispered, “but the guard won’t let me in.”

Midori pressed her face up against the window bars and spoke with breathless urgency: “The ladies say the
sōsakan-sama
killed Lord Mitsuyoshi so that Masahiro-
chan
can be shogun someday. They say he’s a traitor, and so are you because you’re his chief retainer. Tell me it’s not true,” she pleaded.

“Of course it’s not,” Hirata said, alarmed to learn how fast the news had spread around the castle. “Don’t listen to the rumors. The
sōsakan-sama
has been falsely accused.”

A sigh of relief gusted from Midori; her lips quivered in an eager smile. “That’s what I’ve been telling everyone who criticizes him or you.” Then her face crumpled. “But the palace officials told me I should stay away from you because you’re in trouble, and I could get in trouble, too. They said that if you and the
sōsakan-sama
are condemned, I could be thrown out of the castle, or even put to death along with you.” Midori’s voice quavered with fear. “Things aren’t that bad, are they?”

As Hirata searched for words to tell her gently and console her, his face must have revealed the awful truth. Midori whimpered, “Oh, no,” and began to sob.

“I’m sorry,” Hirata said. “I’ve brought you nothing but unhappiness.” Although the idea of giving up Midori appalled him, he had to think of her welfare. He forced himself to say, “Maybe we’d better not see each other anymore. That would please our families. And you’ll be safe.”

“No!” Midori’s protest was immediate and vehement. Her streaming eyes filled with horror; she grasped the window bars.

She was making this so much harder that Hirata almost couldn’t bear to continue. “I love you,” he said brokenly. “I don’t want to give you up. But I can’t let you suffer because of me. We must say goodbye before my troubles destroy you.”

He backed away from the window while Midori darted back and forth sideways, like a caged, frantic animal. “Don’t leave me!” she cried. “If we can’t marry, I’m doomed!” Her weeping rose to a hysterical pitch, and she hunched over, sobbing into her hands. “Oh no, oh no, oh no!”

The force of her reaction halted Hirata. She was even more upset than the occasion merited. “What is it?” he said.

Midori shook her head violently, still sobbing. Hirata stepped up to the window. “Tell me,” he said, bewildered.

He leaned close, and after a moment Midori’s answer emerged in a tiny squeak: “I’m with child.” Then she dissolved into weeping again.

“Oh,” Hirata said, his stomach jarred by shock. Now he understood Midori’s panic. He rued the consequences of their forbidden pleasures.

“I couldn’t tell you before,” Midori whispered. “I was so ashamed. I was so afraid you’d be angry at me.”

Hirata reached through the window bars. “I’m not angry,” he said. “It’s my fault. I should have controlled myself.” As Midori pressed her wet, teary face against his hand, he ached for them both; yet she would suffer more than he from bearing their child out of wedlock. He feared for the child, whose prospects were dire.

“What are we going to do?” Midori wailed in desperation.

Although their circumstances had never been worse, Hirata felt an unexpected pang of hope. “We’ll find a way,” he said. “The child is proof that we’re destined for each other.”

“Are we?” Midori gazed longingly at him.

“Yes,” Hirata said. “Our love is stronger than ever.” It swelled his heart, renewed his confidence. The child gave him added reason to persevere. “We’ll be married soon. I promise.”

Doubt vied with hope in Midori’s expression. “But how?”

“First I’ll find evidence to clear the
sōsakan-sama
s name,” Hirata said. “Then everything else will turn out fine.”

Midori nodded, calmed by his reassurances. Hirata wished he had more faith in them. Restoring his master to the shogun’s good graces wouldn’t automatically solve the other problems that stood in the way of his marriage to Midori.

“I have to do some more investigating now,” he said. “I’ll come back with good news as soon as I can.”

As Hirata withdrew his hand from the window, Midori let go reluctantly, as though she feared she would never see him again.

Hirata arrived in Yoshiwara with two of Sano’s detectives, when the evening’s festivities were already in full sway. They interviewed the courtesans whom Lord Mitsuyoshi had tricked into believing he would marry them, but all three had been able to prove they’d been elsewhere the night Mitsuyoshi died at the Owariya, When Hirata and his companions left the brothel, the rain had ceased; wet roof tiles and streets reflected the lanterns in streaks of gold. Servants hauling trays of food from cookhouses to banquets rushed through the noisy crowds. Maids led clients to the brothels; a vendor sold rice crackers mixed with love poems. As Hirata neared the Owariya, a courtesan and her entourage promenaded up to the door. He experienced a peculiar illusion that he’d been transported backward in time, and the courtesan was Lady Wisteria, arriving for her appointment with Lord Mitsuyoshi.

The illusion grew stronger when Hirata entered the
ageya
and found a party in progress. The guests weren’t the same men who’d been here when Mitsuyoshi died, and the
hokan
singing for them wasn’t Fujio, but Hirata recognized the courtesans he’d interviewed the morning after the crime. A magic door to the past had opened, and his heart beat quicker with a premonition that he would discover new, important evidence tonight.

The proprietor circulated through the parlor, chatting with guests. Hirata walked over to the squat, gray-haired man.

“Greetings,” the proprietor said, smiling uneasily. “How may I serve you?”

“I want to know if you or your staff have remembered anything more about the night of Lord Mitsuyoshi’s death,” Hirata said.

The man winced and looked around the room, obviously loath to spoil the festivities with talk of murder. “I already told you. I was busy with the guests. I didn’t see or hear anything unusual. I wish I could help you, but I can’t. I’m sorry.”

Hirata and the detectives questioned the courtesans and servants. One after another said they didn’t remember anything more. Hirata thought longingly of Midori, and their marriage seemed more impossible than ever. Then, as he pondered his next move, he felt someone watching him. He turned and saw, standing in a doorway leading to the rear of the house, a little girl dressed in a pine-leaf-patterned kimono. Their gazes met, and Hirata recognized Chidori, the
kamuro
who’d waited on Lady Wisteria. Fright blanched her face. She whirled and fled. Instinctively Hirata bolted after her.

She ran down a dim, cold hall and swerved to avoid a man rolling a wine barrel out of a storeroom. Hirata passed maids working in a kitchen as he called, “Chidori-
chan
! Stop!”

The hall ended at a closed door. Chidori tried to pull it open, but it stuck firm. She stood with her back pressed against the door and helplessly faced Hirata, her eyes and mouth round with terror.

“Don’t be afraid.” Hirata halted several paces from her and lifted his hands in a calming gesture. Loud music and laughter rang out from the party. “I won’t hurt you.”

Chidori must have gleaned reassurance from his manner, because her frozen stance relaxed.

“Why did you run?” Hirata said.

“I—I heard you asking questions,” she whispered.

An internal stimulus alerted Hirata that here was a witness with information he needed. “Do you know something about Lord Mitsuyoshi’s murder that you haven’t told us?”

The
kamuro
looked away, biting her lips. “I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt!”

“I know you didn’t,” Hirata said, but he regarded her with consternation. Had
she
stabbed Lord Mitsuyoshi? Was this what she’d concealed, and the reason she’d run away just now? Her little teeth were stained with lip rouge, and tears slid down the white makeup on her thin cheeks. She was just a child.

“He told me that unless I did what he said, he would hurt me,” Chidori wailed.

“Who are you talking about?” Hirata said, puzzled.

A word escaped Chidori in a rush of breath: “Lightning.”

“Who is Lightning?” As he asked, Hirata’s pulse raced. This was a name that hadn’t yet arisen in connection with the murder. Chidori had implicated a potential new suspect who had so far evaded detection. Hirata crouched before the
kamuro
, placing his hands on her shoulders. The bones felt fragile as a bird’s. “Tell me,” he urged.

Chidori shook her head so hard that her limp hair flopped. “I can’t. He made me promise not to tell. I’m afraid of him.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll protect you,” Hirata said.

She looked around to make sure nobody else was near, then mumbled, “He’s Lady Wisteria’s lover.”

“You mean one of her clients?”

“No. He never had appointments. He never paid for her. The master didn’t know about him and Wisteria. Nobody did, except me.” Now Chidori spoke eagerly, as if relieved to confess. “They made me help them meet in secret.”

Hirata rose upright as surprise struck him. “Is this man from Hokkaido?”

“I don’t know where he’s from.”

Still, Hirata thought he’d at last picked up the trail of the secret lover described in the first pillow book, which must be the genuine one. Whether the man came from Hokkaido didn’t matter—Wisteria could have altered details about him to disguise his identity.

“Tell me how you helped Lightning and Wisteria meet,” Hirata said.

“I was supposed to watch for him,” Chidori said. “He would come and stand in the street in front of the house, and whenever I saw him, I would tell Lady Wisteria. That night she would put sleeping potion in her client’s drink. I would go outside every so often to check her window for the signal. After her client fell asleep, she wrapped a red cloth around the lantern in her room so the light would look red. When Lightning saw it, he would go to the back door of the
ageya
. I would make sure no one was around, then let him in.”

And he’d made love to Wisteria while her clients slumbered, just as she’d written in the book, Hirata thought.

“I didn’t want to do it,” Chidori blurted. “Courtesans aren’t supposed to entertain men for free. I shouldn’t have helped Lady Wisteria break the rules. My master would beat me if he ever caught me disobeying. Once I told Lady Wisteria that I wasn’t going to help her anymore because I didn’t want to get hurt. The next time Lightning came—”

She shuddered, and her hands clutched the front of her kimono. “I pretended I didn’t see him. I didn’t open the door. In the morning, when I went to the market, he chased me into an alley. He said he was going to teach me a lesson.” Chidori turned her face away from Hirata, opened her kimono, and whispered, “He did this.”

An ugly red scar ran down the center of the girl’s bony chest to her navel. Hirata winced in sympathy. “So you knew his threat was serious. Did you let Lightning in the
ageya
the night of the murder?”

Eyes downcast in misery, the
kamuro
closed her robe and nodded. The illusion of venturing back in time recaptured Hirata. He pictured Chidori opening the door, and the blurred figure of a man slipping into the house.

“What happened when you let him in?” Hirata said.

“He said that if I told anyone he’d been there, he would kill me. Then he went upstairs. I went back to work.”

Hirata listened to the
hokan
performing a lewd song, and the party guests roaring with laughter. In his mind he saw Wisteria embrace her lover while Mitsuyoshi lay unconscious. He felt the residue of passion and violence left by the murder.

“That’s all I know,” said Chidori, and Hirata knew she was telling the truth. A sob burst from her. “Are you going to arrest me?”

“No,” Hirata assured her. “Lightning forced you to obey him. You’re not responsible for the murder.”

“But if I hadn’t let him in, maybe Lord Mitsuyoshi would still be alive.”

That was possible, but Hirata said, “His death wasn’t your fault. Whoever killed him is to blame.” The murderer could be Wisteria, Treasury Minister Nitta, Fujio, or some yet unidentified person, but Hirata would bet on Lightning. A man who would cut a little girl was brutal enough to have stabbed Lord Mitsuyoshi.

“Tell me everything you know about Lightning,” said Hirata. “Does he have another name?”

Chidori puckered her brow in an effort to recall. “Not that I ever heard.”

“What does he look like?”