“A man can treat his wife however he pleases,” Colonel Kubota huffed. “It’s her duty to submit to him. Setsu had no right to bring you into a private family matter.”
His wife had heard of Reiko’s services to people in trouble and turned to her for help. Reiko remembered how the small, frightened woman had sat in this very room, whispering her tale of torture at the hands of her husband. When Reiko had agreed to rescue her, Lady Setsu had wept with gratitude. She’d also warned Reiko that the colonel would turn his wrath on her.
“You had no right to interfere,” he said. “You had no right to take the law into your hands and get Setsu a divorce.”
“Someone needed to interfere. And the law should protect innocent citizens from harm.” Reiko had gone to her father the magistrate, explained Lady Setsu’s plight, and asked him to intervene on her behalf. Magistrate Ueda had granted the divorce, against Colonel Kubota’s wishes, in the Court of Justice. He’d also decreed that if Kubota went near his wife, he would be sentenced to live as an outcast for three years. The decree was not just unconventional, but unheard of. Colonel Kubota had exploded in a fit of rage and shouted curses at his wife, at the magistrate, and most of all at Reiko.
“You took Setsu away from me.” His smile was ugly, distorted by animosity. Reiko knew he wasn’t angry at her because he loved and missed his wife. “Now she’s living in my country villa that you had the magistrate steal from me, on money that he forced me to settle on her.”
“It was only fair that you should return the dowry she brought to your marriage,” Reiko said. “That villa was part of it. She deserved some compensation for her years of suffering.”
“You did more than compensate her.” Kubota bunched his fists, as though ready to strike Reiko. “You severed my connection with an important clan. You disgraced me in public.” Fury tensed the sinews in his neck. Hatred blazed like flames from him. On the verge of exploding as he had in the Court of Justice, he said, “Someday I’ll take my revenge on you.”
“Maybe you already have,” Reiko said.
Perplexity mingled with his rage. “What are you jabbering about now?
“Lord Mori has been murdered, and I’ve been framed. I’m wondering if you had something to do with that.”
“Oh. I see.” Colonel Kubota’s eyes kindled with malicious enjoyment. “You’re in trouble, and you think I’m to blame.”
“Are you?” Reiko asked.
“What in the world gave you that idea?”
Other than the fact that you hate me? “You knew Lord Mori fairly well,” Reiko said, aware of court gossip.
“Yes. So what?” Disdain and impatience tinged his voice.
“If you paid him a visit, he would have let you into his private quarters.”
“If I did,” the colonel said.
Reiko watched Kubota closely, but all she saw was his familiar rage behind his bland, smiling features. “Perhaps you saw me there. Perhaps you saw a good opportunity to pay me back for the problems I caused you.”
“And you think I stabbed and castrated Lord Mori? You think I knocked you out, stripped you naked, smeared you with blood, then left you beside him?” Colonel Kubota said, shaking his head in disbelief. “How am I supposed to have done that without anyone seeing?”
“You tell me.”
He waved off her prompt, dismissing her theory. “You think I would kill an important daimyo who was an ally of Lord Matsudaira, just to get even with you?” An incredulous laugh burst from him. “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re not important enough for me to take such a risk.”
Reiko knew her theory was far-fetched, but she said, “You’re a violent man with a quick temper. When you beat your wife, you never expected to suffer any consequences. Maybe you didn’t think you would if you killed Lord Mori because I would take the blame.”
“Maybe,” Colonel Kubota mocked her. “The fact is that I couldn’t have killed him. I wasn’t there.”
Reiko remembered that Sano had said he’d found no evidence of outsiders, except for her, in the estate on the night of the murder. “You could have bribed one of Lord Mori’s retainers or servants to kill him.”
Colonel Kubota chuckled. “You have all the answers, don’t you? Well, what you don’t have is proof that I killed Lord Mori and framed you.”
“I’ll leave the proof to my husband to find,” Reiko said, although she was more convinced of her own guilt than Kubota’s. “He’s investigating the murder.”
“You’re going to tell the chamberlain your crazy theory?” Fear shone through Kubota’s indignation as Reiko saw him imagine the persecution that Sano could bring to bear upon him.
“He asked me to think of people who want to hurt me,” Reiko said. “He’ll be interested to hear about you.”
“You mean that you and he will try to pin the murder on me, in order to save your pathetic skin.” The muscles in Kubota’s face twitched while his breath puffed loud with his rage. “As if you haven’t already done enough to ruin me, now you’re going to accuse me and drag my honor through the mud. Well, I won’t let you get away with it!”
He lunged at Reiko, his hands extended to grab, his eyes filled with murderous intent. She reached inside her sleeve and whipped her dagger from its sheath.
“Stop!” she ordered. “Don’t come any closer!”
Even as she thrust the blade at him, her guards burst into the chamber. They seized his arms. He struggled, his face so distorted, so savage, that he looked like a monster. This must be how his wife had often seen him. Lady Setsu was safe now, but Reiko’s own heart thudded with lingering fright. He would have killed her had she not taken precautions.
“Show Colonel Kubota out,” she told her guards. “We’re finished.”
“Oh, no, we’re not,” he shouted as they hauled him toward the door. “You’ll be sorry you ever crossed me, you little whore! I’ll see that you pay for what you did to me!”
20
Ueno Temple district was located at the northeast corner of Edo, the “devil’s gate.” Built to guard the city against evil influences from that unlucky direction, it occupied hilly, rural terrain. Houses and shops lined the road to the foot of the hill crowned by Kan’eiji, the main temple. Sano and his entourage joined crowds of pilgrims passing by the Kanda fruit and vegetable market and the quarters of the shogun’s infantry escort. Along a side road that skirted Shinobazu Pond, teahouses sold rice steamed in leaves from the pond’s famous lotus plants. On the firebreak outside the district, food stalls, souvenir and gambling booths, itinerant preachers, dancers, acrobats, and tightrope walkers abounded. As Sano crossed one of three small bridges over a stream, passed through the Black Gate, and rode up the hill along an avenue lined with cherry trees, a pang of nostalgia saddened him.
Here at Kan’eiji, he’d met Reiko for the first time, at the formal meeting between their families. They’d strolled among blossoming trees while they covertly studied each other. How young and beautiful she’d been! He could hardly believe that nine years had passed since then, or that the love and happiness they’d found together might soon be destroyed.
He and his party arrived at the nunnery, which was secluded behind a high bamboo fence. In a garden outside a building with half-timbered walls and a veranda overhung with wisteria vines, little girls chased one another around flower beds. They squealed with delight and high spirits. Sano thought they must be novices, or orphans taken in by the convent. A nun with a shaved head and severe features, dressed in a plain hemp robe, watched over them. She caught sight of Sano, clapped her hands, and said, “Girls!”
They scrambled into a line and fell silently to their knees. The nun bowed to Sano. The girls followed suit.