Someone in the crowd yelled, “Don’t let them drive us away from our duty to our master! Fight!”
Suddenly all Sano’s troops had their weapons in hand. Blades waving, they drove the Mori men in through the gate. Lieutenant Asukai beckoned to Reiko’s other bodyguards, told one to ride back to Sano’s estate and fetch more troops, then drew his sword. He grabbed Reiko by the hand. Let’s go!
Accompanied by her five remaining guards, they hurried after the brawling crowd and cleared the portals. Inside, men slashed, whirled, and collided in fights around the courtyard as Reiko and Lieutenant Asukai ran past them. Other Mori troops stampeded from within the estate. They charged at Reiko and Lieutenant Asukai. He slashed one down. Reiko’s guards assailed the others.
“Come on!” Asukai shouted to his comrades as he tugged Reiko toward the inner gate. But they were busy fighting; they couldn’t get past the Mori troops. He said to Reiko, “If we wait for them, we’ll get killed.”
“Then we won’t wait,” Reiko said, even though this was enemy territory, she was pregnant and vulnerable, and she needed more than Asukai to protect her. This was her one chance to clear herself. If she didn’t take it, she was dead anyway.
In the confusion of the battle, she and Asukai slipped through the inner gate. “Where to?” Asukai said, panting. He stared in surprise at the blood on his sword. Reiko realized that this was the first time he’d ever killed.
“The women’s quarters,” she said. “This way.”
Running through gardens, they hid behind trees and pavilions to avoid troops rushing to join the battle. They reached the wing of the mansion where the women lived. Lieutenant Asukai shoved open the doors. He and Reiko stepped into Lady Mori’s chamber, which was brightly lit with lanterns, hot and close. A familiar scene greeted Reiko.
Lady Mori sat with her ladies-in-waiting, a large piece of embroidery spread on the floor between them. The gray-haired maid knelt beside Lady Mori, holding a tray that contained scissors, needles, and skeins of colored thread. The ladies-in-waiting gasped at the two wet, bedraggled intruders who’d burst in on them. Lady Mori’s hands froze on her embroidery. The maid paused while offering the tray to Lady Mori. Their expressions went blank as they stared at Reiko. For a moment the only sounds were the women’s quickened breathing, the distant battle noises, and a murmur of thunder.
“Hello, Lady Mori,” Reiko said. “I can tell you never expected to see me again.”
Lady Mori leaned back as Reiko took a step toward her. Her heavy cheeks sagged and her full lips parted in shock. “What-” She groped for words. “How dare you come here? After what you did to my husband!”
“You mean after what you did,” Reiko said. On the way to the estate, she’d figured out the gist of what must have happened. Now she wanted the whole story. “I have some business to settle with you. And with your maid.” She turned to the woman. “Hello, Ukon.”
“Oh, so you’ve finally recognized me,” Ukon said in the brassy, insolent voice that Reiko now remembered hearing in the Court of Justice.
“I’m sorry it took me all this time,” Reiko said, “but you’ve changed since your son’s trial.”
Ukon’s hair had been black then, her complexion smooth for a woman in her late forties, her figure plump and fashionably dressed. Now she wore the faded indigo uniform of a servant. Her hair was solid gray; deep wrinkles etched her face. She was gaunt, as though her flesh had melted from the bones and muscles beneath the skin.
“Having a son put to death for a crime he didn’t commit will do that to you,” Ukon said. Her eyes gleamed with the hatred she’d kept hidden during Reiko’s past visits. She set down her tray of scissors and thread, as if to free her hands for a battle.
“He was guilty. Believing he was innocent is something that only his loyal, devoted mother could do,” Reiko said.
“He didn’t kill that girl.” Ukon was adamant.
“And you’re not just loyal to him, you’re deluded enough to blame me for your troubles,” Reiko said.
“You are to blame. You dragged him in front of the magistrate. He was so frightened that he confessed.” Two years hadn’t shaken Ukon’s certainty.
Reiko saw that she’d been right about Ukon; even though the woman had admitted nothing yet, she was the person behind Reiko’s troubles. “You’re also bold enough to take the revenge on me that you promised. But how did you happen to be here? Was it just a coincidence?”
Ukon smiled with a glimpse of decayed teeth. “Not just. I’ve been trying to get near you since the day my son was executed. I applied for work here because I thought it could lead to a job at Edo Castle, in your house. When you showed up here, I thanked the gods for my good luck.”
“Then you figured out how to make me find out what it’s like to be punished for something I didn’t do,” Reiko said, citing the threat Ukon had hurled at her in the Court of Justice. “You framed me for the murder of Lord Mori. But why him? How did you have the nerve?”
Lady Mori watched Reiko with an expression of nascent fear. She said to Ukon, “She knows! You promised me nobody would find out!”
“She doesn’t know anything she can prove.” Ukon aimed her scorn at Reiko as well as Lady Mori. “Just keep quiet, and we’re safe.”
Reiko saw that although Ukon wasn’t to be so easily pressured into confessing as her son, Lady Mori was a different matter. Reiko said to her, “Ukon couldn’t have done it by herself. At the very least, she needed you to invite me to dinner that night. What else did you do to help her?”
In any conspiracy there is a weaker partner. Lady Mori hunched her shoulders, like a bird trying to hide under its wings. She began to stammer.
“Be quiet!” Ukon said sharply.
Forgetting her fear, Lady Mori regarded Ukon with indignation. “How dare you speak to me like that? Show some respect!”
“My apologies, Honorable Mistress,” Ukon said, her impatience not hidden by her false courtesy, “but I’m trying to keep you out of trouble.”
“You promised there wouldn’t be any trouble,” Lady Mori said angrily. “And now this.” She pointed at Reiko as if she were dog dung on the floor. “I told you it wouldn’t work.”
No love lost between them, Reiko thought. All the better for her. “Why did you help her murder your husband?” she asked Lady Mori.
“I wasn’t just helping her. She was helping me,” Lady Mori said.
Reiko realized that there was more to the situation than she’d thought. The crime wasn’t as simple, nor the motive as straightforward.
“Shut your mouth, you idiot!” Ukon yelled.
Lady Mori drew herself up in a snit. “I have had enough of your uppity ways, of your ordering me around as though I were the servant, not you. I shall talk to Lady Reiko if I wish.”
“Talk, and it’s all over for both of us, you fool,” Ukon said. “She’ll have us put to death!”
They apparently didn’t know that Sano was on the verge of being deposed, the Mori troops were slaughtering his, and Reiko and Lieutenant Asukai would have a hard time getting out of the estate alive. Reiko said, “Tell me about the night Lord Mori died.”
“No!” Ukon grabbed Lady Mori and tried to put a hand over her mouth.
“Let go! How dare you touch me?” Struggling, Lady Mori said to her attendants, “Get her off me!”
They pulled Ukon away. Lady Mori wiped her face, smoothed her garments, and wrinkled her nose as if Ukon’s touch had contaminated her. When she turned to Reiko, the temptation to confess had overcome her fear. Reckless daring sparkled in her eyes. “Ukon and I discovered that we had interests in common. I’ll tell you exactly what happened.”
28
During the ride that seemed endless, Hirata lay beside Sano in the palanquin. Facing in opposite directions, confined in a space so small they couldn’t even turn over, they squirmed in a futile attempt to loosen their bindings. They couldn’t talk around their gags, let alone call out loud enough to be heard by anyone who might help them.