Akitada gave her a reproving look. “She probably means Atsuhira; she’s hiding his true identity.”
“Oh! How fascinating!” Akiko clapped her hands.
Akitada ignored this and continued. It seemed to him Atsuhira had pursued Masako rather early in her career at court, but he said nothing of this.
The writer passed over the incident of the flowering orange branch or the note attached to it, only composing the conventional poem in response. However, the poem was certainly suggestive: “The scent of orange flowers is welcome to one whose sleeves lack such perfume.”
The ladies gasped. Akiko said, “That’s an invitation.”
Tamako merely looked shocked.
Akitada was beginning to enter into Lady Masako’s frame of mind. The rejected young woman wrote of her loneliness. No wonder she longed for love.
The affair began soon after. The prince called on her and spoke to her through the lowered reed curtains. His poems suggested they make their dream a reality. She responded, “I dream sweet dreams; my sleeves are wet with tears. If I take the dark path alone, we will meet in paradise.”
A few nights later, he slipped into her room, and they became lovers. He marked the occasion with a poem on the meeting of their souls. She told him, “The cuckoo’s song was full of pain; now it is summer and he sings with full-throated joy.”
He paused. Had Lady Hiroko known of the forbidden meeting inside the palace? More than likely. And summer would soon be over.
Akiko sniffed. “Hurry on. We still have nothing to point to murder.”
Entries followed about more shared nights and exchanged poems. The meetings in the palace were deemed too dangerous, and the lady arranged outings so she could meet him in his villa. He talked of marriage. She worried about scandal. And still the time spent in the imperial palace hung heavy on her hands. She had no friends except Lady Hiroko, who appeared in the journal now and then as Lady Sakyo. Her father stopped his frequent visits but sent angry letters. At some point, he demanded she return home. She obeyed, but the journal contained nothing about the visit. It picked back up late in autumn, when she was back in the palace.
At this point the tone changed. She had made up her mind to leave her service to the emperor in order to live with the prince. However, there appeared to be difficulties. Lady Masako did not specify what they were, but they seemed to have to do with the prince’s household.
Having got this far, Akitada paused again. “My throat is dry. Let’s have some wine.”
Tamako rose quickly to get it.
Akiko said, “It seems strange nobody in the palace caught on. He managed to creep into her room a number of times, and then she was always going off on excursions. It must have been very dangerous. If he was so eager to take her to wife, he should have done so much sooner.”
Her brother nodded. “Yes. I thought so, too. Prince Atsuhira has played fast and loose with young women before. Perhaps he got cold feet?”
She nodded. “Men are such cowards.”
“Not all men, surely.”
“No, but there are enough of those like the prince at court. If you ask me, Masako was a fool. Even at eighteen, a girl knows better than to listen to such honeyed words.”
Akitada thought back to his last encounter with the prince. “He seemed very distraught over her death. I wonder if it was Lady Kishi who found out about their plans and made difficulties.”
“Kishi would have done more than make difficulties. She would have gone to the emperor.”
“Really?” Akitada was surprised by this and wondered what might have happened if she had done so. But, no, he did not believe the palace would engage assassins.
Akiko said, “No. Kishi doesn’t love her husband. You have to love a man madly to cause a scandal like that.”
Tamako came back, followed by her maid with a tray containing a wine flask and three cups. The maid set this down and poured, then left again. Akitada drank thirstily and refilled his cup immediately. The ladies sipped.
“Akitada thinks Kishi might have informed the emperor of the affair,” Akiko told Tamako.
“Surely that would simply have meant sending Lady Masako home in disgrace,” Tamako remarked.
“Exactly,” nodded her husband. “Still, might she have written to Masaie?”
They pondered this but found no answer.
“Go on with the reading,” urged Akiko. “If she did, we’ll find out soon enough.”
In the middle of the Gods Absent Month, Lady Masako went home again. Akitada paused, looking at the women.
“Strange,” murmured Tamako. “She couldn’t expect anything but more harsh reprimands from her father, yet it sounds as though she requested permission to travel.”
Akiko cried, “I have it. She found out she was with child. It’s the only possible explanation. She couldn’t stay in the palace in that condition.”
Akitada said mildly, “It wouldn’t have been noticeable under all those gowns you women wear.”
Akiko snorted and Tamako smiled. “There are other signs,” she told her husband.
He flushed. “Oh, but would anyone know beside herself and her companion?”
Akiko said, “Certainly. In the imperial palace, there are ladies assigned to taking note of such changes.”
Akitada was embarrassed and decided to go on with the reading rather than pursue such matters.
As it turned out, Lady Masako returned to the palace a week before her death in the Frost Month. The entries were even shorter now. She noted the arrival of winter, perhaps because her visits to the mountain villa became more arduous. Somehow, Akitada sensed that a decision had been made.
“I try to read your heart,” she wrote in one poem to her lover, “while snow falls on my melancholy days.”
“It sounds as though she realized too late she couldn’t rely on him,” commented Tamako. “He’s not a good man. Could he have killed her?”
Silence fell as they considered this.
Akiko nodded first. “I like it. He’s never had a conscience when it came to women. I think he did kill her. How will you prove it though? Go on and read the rest. What does she say just before the day she died?”
“If he killed her, he didn’t try to cover up the affair,” Akitada reminded her. “It got him in all this trouble.”
Akiko pursed her lips. “The trouble happened because your friend insisted on going to the police.”
“True.” Akitada reluctantly gave Akiko credit for having seen this. “But his behavior seemed to be the reaction of an innocent man who was profoundly shocked by her death.”
“Oh, you’re just stubborn. Go on and read.”
There was not much more. Some court observances at the beginning of the Frost Month were briefly mentioned. The prince sent a note. She responded, “Are you also thinking of the moon over the mountain’s edge, lamenting how the days drag on?”
The decisions had been made, Akitada thought. And he read the final entry.
“’Oh winter storm! Your voice is thunder and my sleeves are soaked with tears.’”
“There!” cried Akiko.
Akitada said, “There is no more. She didn’t write another line.”
“A storm. It means a bitter quarrel. She quarreled with the prince.” Akiko’s voice filled with excitement. “They quarreled, Akitada. She wanted marriage and he refused. So she threatened scandal. He made an appointment to meet her, and then he either killed her himself or sent someone to do it. There’s your proof.”
Tamako looked troubled. “She doesn’t use his name. There is no real proof.”
Turning the journal in his hands, Akitada nodded. “Yes, Tamako is right. There is no real proof, just suspicion.”
Akiko jumped up. “Oh, you’re both blind. Can’t you see he’s the obvious one? What was simpler than to send her up to the villa and stage a suicide while he could claim to have been with Kosehira?”
“It could have been as you say,” said Akitada. “But this must have happened while she was still supposed to live in the palace. It could also have been someone else.” He sighed and put down the journal. “And now I think I’ll go and have a nice long soak in the bath.”