She contented herself with saying, “Sano Ichirō’s visit disturbed me. I received him because I wanted to meet the yoriki who is officiating in the matter of Yukiko’s death, but now I’m sorry I did. He is an intelligent, unconventional, and persistent man. You shouldn’t have spoken to him the way you did-you only whetted his interest. Who knows what he might discover if he keeps prying into our affairs?”
“Sano? Who is Sano Ichirō, anyway? Just an insignificant creature, not worth a moment’s thought.”
Masahito freed his hand from her grasp and let out a hoot of maniacal laughter. He’d slipped into the grandiose, reckless mood she feared most. His already bright eyes began to blaze; his body seemed to exude power. Now he would never heed caution or recognize his own vulnerability. He would court death as he had once courted punishment. He would subject himself to agonizing pain and fear, recover, then seek more agony.
“I’ve already taken steps to keep him away from us,” Lady Niu said, fighting to remain calm against her rising terror. What if he should die? Her own life would be empty without him. “Magistrate Ogyu has agreed to restrict his interference. But there are limits to what I can do. I don’t want to arouse suspicion by asking for too many favors, not when it would be so easy for you to maintain a low profile.” She tried to keep the pleading note out of her voice, knowing it would only invite mockery. “Just for a while.”
Masahito sighed. “Mother, I don’t need you to protect me. I know what I’m doing, and I can take care of myself. If Yoriki Sano continues to be a problem-”
He picked up a burning moxa cone. Ignoring her cry of protest, he crushed it between his fingers. He laughed again as it crumbled into ash and fell to the floor in a thin trail of smoke.
Chapter 12
Niu Yukiko’s funeral procession filed through the streets of Edo, slowly making its way east from the Zōjō Temple toward the river.
First came black-clad samurai bearing white lanterns on long poles, followed by more men carrying clusters of sacred lotus made of gold paper. Then the high priest in his gorgeous silk mantle, borne on a litter by orange-robed priests. More priests held smoking incense burners, tinkled bells, beat drums, or scattered rose petals upon the ground. After them strode Lord Niu. He carried the funeral tablet, his gait stiff, his face somber. Then came the coffin, a little white house with a tile roof. Its bearers wore the Niu dragonfly crest on their black garments. More bearers followed with a huge bamboo cage full of twittering birds; then more priests, chanting sutras. Behind them walked the family, with their retainers and attendants, the men in black, the women in pure white.
And the other mourners: rank after rank, hundreds of them, all come to pay their last respects to the daughter of a great lord.
Sano marched with these last. After leaving Raiden, he’d gone back to the barracks to don his ceremonial robes-white silk under-robe, black silk kimono with his family crest of four interlocked flying cranes embroidered in gold at the back, breast, and hem, flowing black trousers, and black haori with padded shoulders. His swords were muffled in black cloth as a gesture of courtesy to the deceased. Now he hoped his costume would let him blend with the mourners and avoid Lady Niu’s notice.
After her warning and Magistrate Ogyu’s reprimand, the thought of approaching the Nius again filled Sano with dread. But since learning of Noriyoshi’s connection with them, he felt he must see Yukiko’s sister Midori again. Perhaps the “proof” she’d claimed to have would lead him to the identity of the blackmail victim and murderer. As a tutor, he’d learned that children often invented tales; caution told him to take anything she said with a healthy dose of skepticism. Still, the possibility that she held the kev to the murders was too strong to overlook.
There were more reasons Sano had to risk stealing a moment with her. Making this effort would discharge his obligation to Wisteria, proving to both her and himself that he wasn’t going to deny Noriyoshi justice because of class considerations. And he’d begun to wonder if the Nius had indeed been involved in the murders and were playing Ogyu for a fool, using the unsuspecting magistrate to cover up their crime. Much as Sano disliked Ogyu, he came from a long line of men who would give their lives to protect their masters. He couldn’t let the Nius involve Ogyu in shady business that might erupt into scandal. For once his personal desires and his professional obligations coincided. Sano peered through the ranks of mourners ahead of him, searching for Midori.
He’d spotted young Lord Niu, the chief mourner, when he caught up with the procession outside the temple, and Magistrate Ogyu among the men toward the front of the line. He’d seen Lady Niu leading the women, her large sturdy frame easily recognizable. But the other women all looked alike in their white kimonos and caps. How would he ever find Midori among them? Even if he did, when and how could he speak to her alone?
The procession passed beneath the arch of a torū gate, descended a flight of stone steps, and halted on the riverbank. There, in the middle of a huge tree-bordered square, under a thatched roof supported by pillars, waited a pit filled with wood. Beside it, tables held offerings of food and drink; braziers sent up fragrant smoke to mingle with the incense and the fresh river breeze. The mourners arranged themselves around the pit. Sano took advantage of the general shift to work his way forward, toward the Niu women grouped near the edge of the pit.
The men with the birds set down the cage and opened it. In a flurry of wings and song, the birds soared skyward, their flight symbolizing the soul’s release from earthly life and ascent to the spirit realm. Sano saw a girl who looked like Midori. As he tried to catch her eye, the crowd shifted again, and he found himself almost within touching distance of Magistrate Ogyu. Hastily he moved back again.
The high priest began to chant to the accompaniment of the bells and drums. The mourners listened in silence. Hemmed in by the men around him, Sano surreptitiously rose to his toes, pretending to watch the priest as he darted glances at the women. He found the girl he’d taken for Midori: she wasn’t. He waited, hoping the funeral would end soon and knowing it wouldn’t.
Finally, after more than an hour, the pallbearers placed Yukiko’s coffin on top of the wood in the pit. Lord Niu stepped forward, holding a torch. He lit it at the brazier, then cast it onto the pyre.
The wood caught fire with a sound like a loud gasp of horror. Instantly a sheet of crackling, thundering flame engulfed the coffin. Black smoke rose from it. In no time at all, coffin and shroud burned away to reveal Yukiko’s naked body-small, delicate, seated upright, head shaven. The flames blistered and darkened her flesh. Her face became a grotesque black mask as her features dissolved against her skull. Bodily fluids hissed and sputtered as the heat evaporated them. The smell of burning meat filled the air. Ashes wafted toward the river.
Sano watched with some of the same feelings he always experienced at funerals: sorrow over a life prematurely ended; instinctive revulsion at the horrible sight of a burning body; and a growing relief as the purifying fire did its work. Since he hadn’t known Niu Yukiko, he felt no grief. Instead, an acute sense of duty toward the dead girl’s spirit stirred in him. For as life ends with death, so do love and hate, happiness and sorrow, pain and pleasure. But Sano believed that truth and justice could transcend death as other worldly concerns do not.
I will find your killer, he promised Yukiko silently.
As he waited for the flames to consume Yukiko’s body, Sano covertly studied the faces of the mourners. Maybe he would see guilt or glee or some other inappropriate emotion on one of them. Something that would identify its owner as a murderer. But he was disappointed. In accordance with funeral custom, no one displayed the slightest emotion. Lady Niu wore her usual serenity like part of her costume. Sano thought he detected restlessness in Lord Niu, but it might have been the product of his imagination, or of the way the flames cast shifting patterns of light across the young man’s face.