Interest animated Aoi’s features as she rose promptly to the challenge. “And who better than an eta for a samurai to kill when he wants to test a sword or practice his technique?”
“Of course!” Sano regarded her with growing admiration. “The killer wanted to murder Kaibara, but he’d never taken a man’s head or prepared a trophy. So he practiced on a victim for whose murder he would never be punished, if caught.”
Discovery of Aoi’s perceptive intelligence increased Sano’s attraction to this mystic whose shocking, erotic ritual had yielded valuable clues. And her shining eyes, the eager forward tilt of her body, reflected her enjoyment of their collaboration. Fleetingly Sano thought of his prospective bride, about whose character and appearance he knew nothing. Then he forgot her as he sought a way to further his relationship with Aoi.
“Let’s meet again tomorrow night,” he said, enthusiastic in his pleasure at having a beautiful partner with whom to discuss his work. “I think your ideas will help me understand and catch the killer.”
But strangely, his enthusiasm caused Aoi to withdraw into her former calm, aloof stillness. “As you wish,” she said remotely. She scooped up the pouch, lock of hair, and label, and held them out to him, bowing.
It was a dismissal. She wanted him gone. Though Sano knew that a man of his position could order her to do anything he wanted, he would honor her wish. He couldn’t think of her as an inferior to be used at will. She’d already given him more than he’d expected: insight into the killer’s motives; a description of the man for whom to search. Reaching out, he accepted the relics.
Their hands touched. Hers was warm despite the cold night. From the faint blush that colored her cheeks, Sano suspected that the brief contact had stirred her desire too. But although he turned to look back at her as he left the clearing, she wouldn’t return his gaze.
Perhaps tomorrow he would begin to know her-and to draw from her the same response she awakened in him.
Chapter 9
A low-lying fog veiled the city when Sano rode out through the castle’s western gate early the next morning. Ahead, he could discern only the rooftops of the banchō. The district where the Kaibara clan and other Tokugawa hatamoto lived looked like a village in a painting, floating on a lake of mist against hills softened by white haze.
This pleasant impression quickly faded as he entered the banchō. Hundreds of small, ramshackle yashiki stood crammed together, each estate surrounded by a live bamboo fence. Thatched houses rose above the leafy stalks. The smells of horse dung and sewage permeated the air. These Tokugawa vassals, however long and faithfully they’d served their lord, were by no means Edo ’s richest citizens. Rising prices and the falling value of their stipends kept them poor compared with their landed superiors and the affluent merchant class. Signs of poverty abounded: half-timbered walls bare of whitewash or decoration; plain, roofless wooden gates, each with a single shack for a guardhouse; the simple cotton garments and unadorned leather armor tunics of the samurai who occupied the guardhouses and thronged streets barely wide enough for four men to walk side by side.
Sano stopped a passing samurai and asked the way to Kaibara’s yashiki. But as he edged his horse through the crowds and down bumpy dirt roads, he quickly lost all sense of direction in the banchō’s tangled maze. Sano remembered an old saying: “One born in the banchō might yet not know his way around it.” Finally, after asking directions again and losing his way several more times, he arrived at the Kaibara estate. There, outside a gate hung with black mourning drapery, waited Hirata. His wide, suntanned face looked ruddy with health, and a boyish eagerness lit his eyes at the sight of Sano.
After they’d exchanged greetings, Sano said, “Find out if anyone saw Kaibara leave the banchō the night he was murdered, or saw anyone following him. Particularly a large, pockmarked samurai with a lame right leg.”
As he explained how he’d gotten the suspect’s description, last night’s events seemed bizarre and dreamlike. But his belief in Aoi’s powers remained. As the young doshin set off to do his bidding, Sano glanced eastward at the castle. Mist still clung to its foundations, as if the spirits evoked in the ritual hadn’t yet ceased haunting it. Sano wondered what Aoi was doing now, and whether her sleep, like his, had been disturbed by the experience they’d shared…
Banishing this irrelevant thought, he dismounted, approached the Kaibara guardhouse, and identified himself to the elderly sentry posted there. “I must speak to Kaibara’s family.”
“Yes, master.” The guard shuffled toward the gate.
Sano wondered how a man so feeble could be charged with protecting his master’s estate. “Were you on duty the night before last?” he asked.
The guard opened the gate and stood aside for Sano to enter. “No,” he said sadly, hanging his head. “If I had been, I would have kept my master inside and prevented his death.”
This answer perplexed Sano. It sounded as though the gate had been unguarded-surely an unusual occurrence in the banchō, and one that eliminated a possible witness to Kaibara’s departure. And why should a retainer think it necessary to make sure his master didn’t leave home?
“I want to speak to the night sentry,” Sano said. “But first, tell me why you didn’t want Kaibara to go out.”
Shame filled the man’s eyes, and Sano understood: No one had been on duty, and the loyal retainer didn’t want to expose the private affairs of the Kaibara family.
“That will be all, thank you,” Sano said, leaving his horse with the guard and entering the gate. Perhaps the answers to these questions, and others, lay inside the house.
He got an inkling of the truth when he entered the bare, deserted courtyard. The house was fairly large, with a wide veranda and generous entry porch. But cracks veined the walls; broken window lattices rattled in the breeze; weeds sprouted up through the flagstones of the path. No servant came out to greet him, or announce his arrival to the Kaibara, whose failure to maintain their property suggested financial hardship, which would also explain why they lacked men to staff and protect the house.
Once inside, Sano had to pause and compose himself after removing his shoes in the entryway. The smell of incense, the sound of a woman weeping, the hollow drumbeats, the monotonous chanting, and the house’s shuttered gloom all reminded him of his father’s funeral vigil. He steeled himself to enter the main room and observe its occupants with professional detachment.
An orange-robed priest chanted Buddhist scriptures, punctuating them with strokes upon a gourd-shaped wooden drum. Before him stood the coffin-an upright wooden box painted white. A low altar held a funeral tablet bearing Kaibara’s name, a vase of flowers, burning incense sticks and candles, and offerings of rice, fruit, and sake. Although Sano had expected to see many mourners, only two women, one white-haired and elderly, the other about fifty, knelt near the priest. Both wore white mourning robes; the younger one wept as she clutched the stoic older woman’s hand. They looked up at the sound of Sano’s footsteps, while the priest continued chanting and drumming.
Sano introduced himself, adding, “I’m sorry to disturb you at such a time, but since the shogun has charged me with the task of capturing Kaibara-san’s killer, I must ask you a few questions.”