Tamura ended with a series of flourishes so rapid that his sword was a silver blur. He halted, his chest heaving. His breath puffed white clouds into the chilly room. He lowered his weapon and bowed.
“Very good,” Hirata said.
Tamura appeared not to hear. Hirata walked up to Tamura and clapped his hands loudly. Tamura turned at the sound, which echoed through the hall. Irritation slanted his eyebrows at a sharper angle as he became aware of Hirata.
“Did the sōsakan-sama send you to pester me with more questions?” Tamura said. “I thought I heard you’d been barred from investigating the murder.”
“This is just a friendly, informal chance encounter,” Hirata said.
Tamura’s reply was a stare filled with distrust. He placed his sword on a rack, picked up a water jar, and drank deeply. He wiped his mouth on his arm and waited for Hirata to state the purpose of his visit. A thought occurred to Hirata. That Tamura hadn’t at first heard him speak suggested that Tamura was deaf. Was that why he hadn’t heard anything the night Senior Elder Makino died? He wouldn’t have said so because a proud samurai like him never admitted to any physical defects. Rather, he would read lips and pretend he could hear. But deafness didn’t equal innocence. There were other reasons why Tamura might withhold the truth.
“Why are you in here, fencing with your shadow, instead of riding off to war?” Hirata said. “Are you preparing to carry out the vendetta you swore yesterday?”
Tamura showed no surprise that Hirata knew about the vendetta. “Yes, although it’s none of your business. My samurai duty to avenge the death of my master outweighs all other concerns.”
“Even though you despised him?”
A scowl darkened Tamura’s features, but instead of rising to Hirata’s bait, he took up a cloth and rubbed sweat off himself.
“Your arguments with Makino are a matter of record,” Hirata said. “You disapproved of his greed for money, the bribes he extorted, and his whore mongering. You called him dishonorable to his face. Yet you expect me to believe that you think his death is worth avenging?”
“Duty must be served regardless of the master’s faults.” Tamura sounded as if he were quoting some Bushido tract. “My personal feelings are irrelevant.”
He threw down the cloth and hefted his sword. His kind of pompous, old-fashioned warrior virtue always irritated Hirata, who knew that it was often nothing but hypocrisy. “So who’s the lucky target of your vendetta?” Hirata said.
“I don’t know yet.” Tamura crouched, holding his sword horizontal, sweeping it slowly across the room, and sighting along the blade. “But I’m not waiting for the sōsakan-sama to figure out who killed my master.” His sneer said he didn’t think much of Sano’s chances.
“Are you conducting your own inquiries, then?” Hirata said, displeased by the tacit insult to his own master.
Tamura raked a disdainful glance across Hirata. “There’s no need for inquiries. Meditation will reveal the truth to me.”
If meditation could reveal a murderer’s identity, it would save him and Sano a lot of trouble, Hirata thought skeptically. But of course it worked without fail when one already knew the truth.
“Maybe it’s appropriate for you to be fencing against yourself,” Hirata said. “Maybe your vendetta is nothing but a charade to hide your own guilt.”
A contemptuous grin curled Tamura’s lip as he carved a swath of air with his sword. “If the sōsakan-sama were sure of that, he would have already arrested me.”
Hirata couldn’t deny this. Maybe Tamura really was innocent and his vendetta genuine. The lack of witnesses and evidence argued in his favor. Yet Hirata had a strong hunch that Tamura would figure into the solution of the mystery.
“Supposing you didn’t kill your master,” Hirata said, “maybe you’ve already carried out your vendetta. One of the murder suspects was stabbed to death last night.”
A slight, awkward fumble interrupted the motion of Tamura’s blade. But Tamura said calmly, “So I’ve heard. The news about Lord Matsudaira’s nephew is all over Edo Castle.”
“Did you already know it?” Hirata said.
“Because I killed him?” Tamura snorted. “Don’t make me laugh. I had nothing to do with Daiemon’s death. You’re just fishing and hoping for a bite.”
“You went out yesterday evening.”
“I was nowhere near that filthy place where Daiemon died.” Pivoting, Tamura maneuvered his sword in a smooth arc.
“Where did you go?” Hirata circled Tamura, keeping his face in view.
“I inspected Chamberlain Yanagisawa’s army camp outside town. Eight of my men were with me. You can ask them.”
Hirata knew that men loyal to Tamura would say anything for him, but instead of challenging the man, he waited. Unlike the actor, Tamura didn’t fill the silence with self-compromising blabber. But Hirata noticed that even while Tamura performed strenuous lunges, the puffs of vapor from his mouth ceased momentarily: Tamura was holding his breath, anxious for Hirata to believe his alibi… because it was false?
“Did meditation reveal to you that Daiemon killed your master and deserved to die?” Hirata said.
Tamura breathed again, apparently thinking that his alibi had stymied Hirata, who’d resorted to fishing again. “It’s common knowledge that Daiemon was a poor excuse for a samurai,” he said between whistling sword strokes. “He had too good an opinion of himself, too little respect for his elders, and too much appetite for women. He spread disgusting lies that my master had defected. Someone did the world a favor by getting rid of Daiemon. Bleeding to death in his whore’s bed was a fitting end to him.”
“Your attitude toward him sounds like a motive for murder,” Hirata said.
The sword flashed close to him, and he leaped back just in time to avoid a cut across the throat. Tamura said, “I wouldn’t dirty my blade on a rat like Daiemon.”
“What if he knew something about you that you’d rather keep secret? When he was at Senior Elder Makino’s estate, did he see you killing your master or covering up the murder?”
“Nonsense!” Tamura whacked at Hirata’s shins; Hirata sprang above the blade. “Even if I’d wanted to kill Daiemon, I wouldn’t have sneaked up on him in the dark, stabbed him, and run. That’s a coward’s way of killing.”
“Instead you’d have marched up to Daiemon on the street in broad daylight and cut off his head?” said Hirata.
“As a true samurai would.”
Hirata could picture Tamura doing such a thing. The murder of Daiemon did seem out of character for him-but perhaps that had been intentional. Hirata said, “Suppose you didn’t want anyone to know you’d killed Daiemon. You might have done it in a way that you thought no one would think you would, to avoid punishment from Lord Matsudaira.”
Tamura gave an abrasive chuckle as his sword sliced intricate, lightning-fast patterns in the air. “Deceit is dishonorable. A true samurai takes credit for his actions and accepts the consequences. When I carry out my vendetta, everyone will know what I’ve done. I’ll go to my fate with my head held high.”
His gaze deplored Hirata. “But I don’t expect you to understand. After all, you’re famous for your disloyalty to your master. Who are you to accuse me of disgrace?”
Hot shame and rage erupted in Hirata. Tamura stood still, his sword held motionless in both hands, the blade canted toward Hirata. With instinctive haste, Hirata drew his own weapon. Tamura grinned.
“Now we’ll see who’s the true samurai and who’s the disgrace to Bushido,” Tamura said.
The lantern light glinted on their blades. Hirata felt danger vibrating in the air between them, his heart drumming with a primitive urge for a battle to the death, his muscles tensed to lunge. But second thoughts gave him pause. He didn’t fear losing; although Tamura was an expert swordsman, he was some thirty years older than Hirata, and he’d never fought real battles, as Hirata had. Instead, Hirata realized that killing one of the suspects would hurt the investigation. Rising to Tamura’s challenge to defend his honor would only prove Hirata an incorrigible disgrace to Sano and condemn himself to death as a murderer.