Go, Aoi wanted to cry, before all is lost! And take me with you, away from this awful place. Then she thought of her people, whose lives depended on her continued obedience. Sighing mournfully, she laid her hands upon the sash.
“Listen, my son.” She assumed the old woman’s raspy voice, and arranged her features in the expression she’d gleaned from Fusei’s memory.
“Yes, mother.” He leaned toward her eagerly.
“My son, you must take your sword to your enemy.”
“No! I cannot!” Fusei’s clouded gaze cleared; his mother’s message had shocked him sober. “It would be treason!” Then, as he gazed upon what he thought was his mother, speaking through Aoi from the spirit realm, his expression turned resolute. “But if I must, then so be it.”
Holding back her tears took every bit of self-control Aoi possessed. “Yes, my son,” she whispered. Two days later, he was dead in a violent scandal of his own making-and hers. Yanagisawa succeeded to the post of chamberlain without further opposition. Night after night, Aoi lay awake, weeping silently, hating herself and the duty that bound her. Then fate dealt her another blow when Chamberlain Yanagisawa summoned her to the keep for the first of many secret meetings.
“Michiko is dead,” he said. “From now on, you will command the spy network, reporting directly to me.”
The news hit Aoi like a thunderbolt. For years, the lingering dream of freedom had sustained her. She longed to see her father again. And she cherished the wistful hopes that in her own village she might work for good, rather than evil; she might find a man to fill the emptiness that Fusei’s death had left in her soul. But now she would never be free. Like Michiko, she would spend the rest of her life in exile, condemned to do work she despised, for men she hated. She wanted to hurl herself through the barred window and onto the ground five stories below.
But the old threat still held. Instead she’d whispered, “Yes, Honorable Chamberlain.”
“So, kunoichi,” the present-day Yanagisawa said. “Do you understand your orders?”
Aoi nodded in resignation. Six long years had passed since she’d driven her lover to his death and broken her own heart. She wasn’t a foolish young girl now, but a mature professional who knew how to maintain her detachment. She need not involve herself intimately with Sano and risk more pain. She would sabotage his work so badly that his total destruction would be unnecessary. She could satisfy Yanagisawa without adding another murder to her sins.
A movement outside made them both turn toward the window. Above the palace’s rooftops, curving stone walls, shining moats, and green gardens, a hawk wheeled and soared. As they watched, it veered to capture a tiny bird. A shriek of pain, a spatter of blood, and both predator and prey dropped from sight. Aoi winced inwardly.
Yanagisawa contemplated the empty sky for a moment. The voices and footsteps of the patrolling guards drifted up to fill the silence. Then he said, “Will you use the dark forces against Sano?”
Aoi sensed a sudden chill in the emotional climate that surrounded Yanagisawa. His nonchalant manner couldn’t disguise his fear of her. The mysterious “dark forces” were simply a combination of heightened perception, sensory awareness, and a thorough knowledge of the human mind and body. Formidable tools, beyond a samurai’s comprehension, yet hardly supernatural. But Yanagisawa knew she could kill him-with a poison dart, a concealed blade, or one sharp blow-before he could defend himself or summon help. So far she’d never had to commit an assassination, the last, dreaded resort should all other means of completing a task fail. But she would gladly kill Yanagisawa, if not for the death threat he held over her and her people.
Aoi looked Yanagisawa straight in the eye, and saw that he knew it. His smile vanished. The balance of power between them shifted-but only temporarily. She lowered her gaze and bowed.
“I will use whatever means necessary to achieve your aims, Honorable Chamberlain.”
Chapter 5
Sano rode through a maze of narrow lanes that grew poorer and drabber as he neared Edo Jail, which housed not only prisoners awaiting trial, but also the morgue, where the bodies of those who died in natural disasters or from unnatural causes were taken. Here the spring sunlight only emphasized the signs of poverty, tumbledown houses with patched roofs and outdoor kitchens; thin, hungry-looking children. The warm weather intensified the smells of garbage, sewage, and poor food.
A rickety wooden bridge led Sano across the rank, stagnant canal that formed a moat around Edo Jail. Before him rose the ominous bulk of the Tokugawa prison, with its high stone walls, multiple watchtowers, and massive iron-banded gate. When he reached the end of the bridge, two guards came out of the guardhouse, bowed, and slid back the heavy wooden beams that barred the gate.
“Come right in, sōsakan-sama,” they chorused. Two months of his frequent visits had accustomed them to receiving him at this place of death and defilement where no one, especially high-ranking samurai, ever came voluntarily.
As he dismounted and led his horse in the gate and through the prison, Sano reflected upon the changes he’d undergone since his first trip to the jail. Then he’d come reluctantly, on a distasteful errand associated with his first murder investigation. He’d never imagined wanting to return.
Now he no longer needed anyone to escort him through the compound of earthen courtyards and dingy guards’ barracks and administrative offices. And he’d almost overcome his ingrained aversion, born of his Shinto religion, to contact with places of death. The proximity of the main prison building, where inmates suffered painful torture and squalid living conditions, and his fear of ritual pollution no longer made him physically ill. Nor did the smell of decay that surrounded the compound like a foul aura. Yet even when they still had, he’d come anyway-not out of professional duty, but to see Dr. Ito Genboku, Edo Morgue custodian, the friend whose scientific expertise had helped him prove that an apparent double suicide was actually a murder. Whose wisdom and kindness had aided his struggle with the conflict between duty and desire, conformity and self-expression.
Now Sano entered a final courtyard near the jail’s rear wall and stopped outside a low building with plaster walls and a thatched roof. The door opened at his knock and a short, wiry man with cropped gray hair and a square, stern face came out and knelt on the dirt to bow.
“Mura,” Sano greeted him.
He’d also overcome his distaste for this man, an eta. The eta, society’s outcasts, staffed the jail, acting as corpse handlers, janitors, jailers, torturers, and executioners. They also performed the city’s dirtiest tasks: emptying cesspools, collecting garbage, and clearing away dead bodies after floods, fires, and earthquakes. Their hereditary link with such death-related occupations as butchering and leather tanning rendered them spiritually contaminated. However, because Mura was both friend and assistant to Dr. Ito, Sano had learned to treat him with a respect not usually accorded an eta.
“Is the honorable doctor well, and able to receive visitors today?” he asked.
“As well as ever, master. And always glad to see you.”
“Then please secure my horse.” As the eta rose, Sano removed a flat package from his heavily laden saddlebag and tucked it under his arm, adding, “And unload these parcels.”
“Yes, master.” Mura’s deepset, intelligent eyes flashed Sano a look of understanding as he took the reins.
Sano walked to the door of the morgue, feeling a touch of the old apprehension. He never knew what he would find here. Gingerly crossing the threshold, he held his breath, then sighed in relief.