“It has followers everywhere,” Reiko said, “maybe even in Lord Mori’s estate. Maybe one of them killed him and framed me. I need you to ask around town and try to find out.”
“I can do that.” Lieutenant Asukai seemed pleased to have a part in the investigation as well as a chance to serve her.
“Take my other guards to help you,” Reiko said.
“All right.” He poised on the verge of departure. “Is there anything else?”
Reiko had to ask whether his memory of events matched her own, even though she didn’t want him to think she was going crazy. “Do you remember taking me to the Persimmon Teahouse to meet Lily?” she said in a cautious, halting tone. “Do you remember how I spied on Lord Mori’s estate from the fire-watch tower and went to visit Lady Mori so that I could look for the stolen boy named Jiro?”
Lieutenant Asukai regarded her with puzzlement and concern. He hesitated a moment before he said firmly, “Yes. Of course I do. And so do the other men in your retinue. That’s what we’ll tell anyone who asks us.”
His response didn’t ease Reiko’s doubts a bit. Loyalty had its disadvantages. She couldn’t tell if he did indeed recall helping her with her investigation or if he was claiming he did because she needed him to substantiate her story. He would back her up if she’d said she’d flown to the moon. He would make her other attendants stand by her, too.
Furthermore, he couldn’t verify what had happened during her visits to the Mori estate or on the night of the murder. He hadn’t been with her; neither had her other men. She wondered if he and they had suspicions that she’d killed Lord Mori, but she was afraid to ask.
“Thank you,” was all she could say.
After the lieutenant had gone, she sat twisting her hands in anxiety. More than ever she wished she’d never taken on the search for Lily’s stolen child, the little good she’d done. But there was no use wasting time on regret or indulging her fear that she was a murderess. She had to discover the truth. And the truth lay in those lost hours.
First she must calm her mind, the better for buried memories to surface. Reiko positioned herself with her buttocks resting between her heels, her back erect but not rigid, her chin tucked inward, and her hands palms up with the left atop the right. She lowered her eyelids but didn’t close them. She rocked back, form, and sideways until her body was balanced, then sat still. Breathing slowly and deeply through her nose, she let thoughts and emotions go by like clouds drifting in a blue sky. Tranquility slowed her pulse, and she floated up to a higher state of consciousness.
Now Reiko cast her spirit back to that night at the Mori estate. She pictured herself kneeling on the veranda of the private quarters. The gray day and her familiar home surroundings vanished. Immersed in darkness, she heard water dripping and distant voices in the night. She inhabited the self mat peered through the hole she’d cut in the window.
Inside the room, Lord Mori lay in his bed, alone. His chamber was a hazy blur of light and shadow. Eyes closed, he breathed heavily in slumber. He rolled over on his side, his eyes blinked open, and he looked straight at Reiko.
“Who are you?” he said, drowsy and confused. “What are you doing here?”
Reiko turned away from the spy-hole. She stood, then whirled into unconsciousness, floated blind in its black oblivion. Moments or hours passed until her vision returned in a sudden splash of light. Around her spun lanterns and walls. She was inside Lord Mori’s chamber. Distorted voices and shrill laughter echoed. Blackness immersed her again. Then another splash of light struck her and revealed Lord Mori. He was naked, crawling and dragging himself away from her. His eyes were filled with terror.
“No!” he cried. “I beg you! Stop!”
Cuts on his torso spilled blood, which his hands and knees smeared on the floor as he struggled and wept. “Please!” The chamber reeled around him and Reiko, blurring the lanterns. Hysterical giggles drowned out his sobs. “Have mercy!”
Reiko screamed.
The sound broke her trance. She snapped back to the present with disconcerting abruptness. She gasped as she found herself at home. Rain pattered on the garden. Her heart pounded so fast that she thought it would explode. Reiko put her head down on her knees while shivers wracked her, cold sweat bathed her body, and the memories she’d dredged up from her unconsciousness filled her with horror.
There had been no dead boy in Lord Mori’s room.
Lord Mori had seen her, spoken to her.
She’d been with him, alert not unconscious, while he bled from his wounds and pleaded for his life.
These memories couldn’t be true! Yet they’d felt so much more real than those she’d related to Sano. A dreadful instinct told Reiko that those things had happened. The new memories prevailed over her earlier ones, like the sun outshining candle flames. What had she done that was so terrible that she would have invented a delusion to replace it?
Against her will, her mind conjured up answers: Instead of just spying on Lord Mori, I confronted him. I asked him what had become of Lily’s son, accused him of stealing Jiro. He bragged that he’d killed Jiro and mocked my attempt to hold him responsible. I was so angry, I took justice into my own hands.
“No!”
The fervent denial burst from Reiko even as she saw herself drawing her dagger on Lord Mori. She clutched her head. “I didn’t kill him. I couldn’t have,” she whispered, frantic to convince herself. “I would never!”
Yet she felt direly uncertain of that. If she couldn’t trust her memory, how could she trust her belief that her honor would have prevented her from killing an unarmed, helpless man no matter what he’d done? And if there had been no dead boy, what else in her story might not be real?
How about Lily and Jiro? Had she invented them? Reiko was terrified not only because she might have committed murder. Her mind, which she’d always valued as her most important, dependable attribute, had betrayed her. And if Lily and Jiro didn’t exist, then why had she gone to the Mori estate?
Reiko thought of Lady Mori. Could there be any truth to the woman’s allegation that she and Lord Mori had been lovers? Nausea rose, sour and choking, in her throat.
“I couldn’t have! I would never!” she repeated, as if saying it would make it so.
But her suspicion of her guilt burgeoned even larger. With it came the knowledge that she couldn’t tell Sano about it. Now an awful new thought surfaced in her. If she could be a murderess, then Sano could be guilty of plotting treason. If she couldn’t be sure of herself, then how could she be sure of anyone else, even her trusted, beloved husband?
15
“Has anything been found yet?” Sano asked.
He was standing inside a walled compound within the Mori estate. Here, a large, fireproof storehouse with plaster walls and ironclad doors comprised the estate’s arsenal, which was headquarters for the search for the weapons Hirata had seen delivered to the estate. One of Sano’s soldiers stood guard.
“Nothing unusual.” The soldier opened the arsenal door, revealing the large stash of swords, daggers, spears, and lances that were standard equipment at any daimyo’s estate.
“No guns?”
“Just those.”
The soldier pointed to nine arquebuses laid atop an iron chest. Sano went in the storehouse and examined them. Their stocks were inlaid with gold designs, their steel barrels oiled to prevent rust.
Lord Mori’s chief retainer appeared in the doorway. “Those guns are heirlooms. They’ve been in the family for more than a hundred years.” Akera sounded irritated by Sano’s investigation and glad that it wasn’t going well. “Don’t expect anyone to believe they’re proof that my master was plotting a rebellion.”