“You should be careful when you drink wine in bed!” she exclaimed, shaking the quilt, which exhibited a large purple stain. Her voice had a brassy edge, as if she often shouted. Her hair, knotted above her long, thin neck, was dyed a dull, unnatural black. “This will never come clean. You’ve completely ruined an expensive quilt, you little fool!”
The courtesan cringed and mumbled.
“Don’t blame your client,” Momoko said. Her profile was elegant, but vicious. “And how dare you talk back to me?”
She smacked the courtesan hard across the face. The courtesan shrieked in pain. Momoko hurled the quilt at her. “The price of this quilt will come out of the fee you earned last night. Forget about buying your freedom, because at this rate, you’ll never leave Yoshiwara until you’re so old and ugly they throw you out. Now go home!”
The courtesan sobbed as she scurried out the door past Sano. The yarite turned and saw him; the anger in her expression gave way to surprise, then dismay. “Oh! Are you the shogun’s sōsakan-sama? The words came in a gasp, and when Sano nodded, she quickly bowed. “I’m honored by your presence. Your retainer said you wanted to see me. How may I serve you?”
Sano noted that she must have once been beautiful, but the passage of perhaps forty years had sharpened the bones in her cheeks and narrow figure. Her coy smile showed decaying teeth and failed to hide her fear of Sano. Obviously, Momoko knew why he wanted to see her, and how precarious was her situation.
“I’m investigating the murder of Lord Mitsuyoshi,” Sano said, “and I must ask you some questions.”
“Certainly. I’ll do my best to help you.” Momoko minced closer to Sano, her posture sinuously provocative, her smile rigid as a shield. “Shall we go to the parlor? May I give you a drink?”
Perhaps her garrulity was merely an outlet for her nervousness, Sano thought, as might be her attack on the courtesan. Or was the yarite a cruel killer, chattering to hide her guilt? Reserving judgment, he accompanied Momoko to the parlor, where she seated him in the place of honor in front of the alcove. She bustled around, fetching the sake jar, warming it on the charcoal brazier, and pouring a cup for Sano.
“What a shame, the death of Lord Mitsuyoshi,” she said. “He was so young, so charming. And how terrible, the way it happened!” Momoko talked faster and faster, alternately smiling and biting her lips, while darting frantic, coquettish glances at Sano.
“Let’s go over what you did yesterday evening,” he said.
“What I did?” Momoko froze, and panic leapt in her eyes, as if Sano had accused her of the murder.
“I’m trying to determine everyone’s movements and learn about the events leading up to the crime.” Sano wondered if her reaction indicated guilt, or the fear that he would think her guilty although she wasn’t.
“Oh.” Relief slackened the yarite’s face, but it immediately tensed again.
“Did you chaperone Lady Wisteria to the ageya?” Sano asked. When Momoko nodded, he said, “Tell me about it.”
The yarite knelt before Sano, twisting her hands in her lap. “Shortly after the evening meal, the proprietor of the Great Miura told me that Lord Mitsuyoshi wanted an appointment with Lady Wisteria.”
Every transaction in Yoshiwara was performed according to strict protocol. Sano knew that Mitsuyoshi would have gone to the ageya to ask for Wisteria’s company, and the staff would have written a letter to the brothel, formally requesting the appointment.
“I helped Lady Wisteria dress,” Momoko said, “and then she made her procession to the Owariya. We got there about an hour later.”
A tayu’s procession to meet a client at an ageya was an elaborate affair that involved some ten or twenty attendants. It moved very slowly, so even though the brothel and the Owariya were but a few blocks apart, the journey would have been long. Sano had a sudden vivid image of Wisteria dressed in brilliant kimono, walking past admiring spectators, kicking each foot in a semicircular, ritualistic pattern as she stepped. She must be in her mid-twenties now, but still small and slender and graceful, with unusually round eyes that gave her delicate face an exotic charm…
“What happened then?” Sano asked.
“I took Lady Wisteria to the parlor, where Lord Mitsuyoshi was waiting,” Momoko said. “I served them their sake.”
The greeting ritual between tayu and client resembled a wedding ceremony, in which the couple drank from the same cup to seal their bond. Sano pictured Wisteria seated at a diagonal from Mitsuyoshi, neither speaking to him nor showing emotion, as tradition required. She sipped her draught, while Mitsuyoshi gazed upon her with anticipation…
Sano refocused his attention on the yarite. Her hands maintained their grip on each other, and the nervous movement of her eyes quickened. “It was their third meeting, so I took them upstairs,” she said.
No tayu made love to a new client on his first visit, nor his second. Wisteria would have rejected Mitsuyoshi twice previously, as custom dictated. Sano envisioned Momoko, Lady Wisteria, and Lord Mitsuyoshi climbing the stairs to the bedchamber, where Mitsuyoshi would finally claim his prize. He imagined their expressions: Mitsuyoshi’s eager, Momoko’s sly, and Wisteria’s carefully blank. Had any of them known how the tryst would end?
“I showed them into the room,” Momoko said, “and Wisteria dismissed me. Lord Mitsuyoshi closed the door.”
“Was there anyone else present then besides Wisteria, Lord Mitsuyoshi, and you?” Sano asked.
“No. I brought them up by myself. It’s the custom.”
And Yoshiwara custom was inviolable.
“Then I went downstairs. I had to watch over the courtesans who were entertaining the guests at the party. What a hard time I have with those wretched girls!”
Momoko’s speech accelerated into chatter again, betraying her wish to avoid discussing what had later happened. But this was what most concerned Sano. He said, “Did you see Lady Wisteria again after you left the room?”
“No; that was the last I ever saw of her.” The yarite interlocked her fingers so tightly they turned white.
“Have you any idea where she went?”
“No. She certainly wouldn’t have told me, because she wasn’t supposed to leave.”
“Whom might she have told?” Sano said.
Momoko pondered, biting her lips. “Wisteria isn’t close to the other courtesans. She keeps to herself.” An aggrieved expression came over Momoko’s features. “She never even speaks to me unless she has to, because she hates me. These girls today have no respect for their elders. I work hard training them, and how do they repay me? By treating me as if I were a mean old slave driver!” The brassy tone returned to her voice. “Well, of course I have to punish them for disobedience. And they suffer no worse than I did in my day.”
The cruelty experienced by Yoshiwara courtesans at the hands of their chaperones was legendary, and the incident Sano had witnessed today was minor compared to the routine beatings and humiliation. Probably, former courtesans like Momoko enjoyed inflicting the same wrongs done to them upon the next generation. And Sano suspected that enmity lay on both sides of the relationship between courtesan and yarite-especially when one was beautiful and sought after, while the other had lost her glory.
“Do you hate Wisteria as much as she hates you?” he asked Momoko.
“Of course not. I love all the girls as if they were my daughters.” But the yarite’s indignation rang false. She said sharply, “Something bad has happened to Wisteria, and you think I did it?”
Sano observed how quickly Momoko had responded to the implication that Wisteria had been hurt or killed, then perceived an accusation. “Did you?” he asked.
“No! I don’t know where she is, or what’s happened to her. I swear I never saw her after I left the room!”