Inside Lord Asano’s estate in Edo, Ukihashi dressed her two daughters in new, matching pale green kimonos. She smiled at the girls and said, “Don’t you look pretty!”
A servant interrupted. “Kira Yoshinaka is here to see you.”
Ukihashi was surprised. What could the shogun’s master of ceremonies want with her? She hurried to the reception room and found the old man kneeling by the alcove. His head tilted upward at a haughty angle, and his eyebrows had an arrogant arch, but he smiled warmly.
“Hello, my dear,” Kira said. “You’re every bit as beautiful as I’ve heard.”
Flattered, confused, and timid, Ukihashi blushed as she knelt and bowed. “You’re too kind … I don’t deserve … May I offer you some refreshments?”
While they drank tea and nibbled cakes, Kira chatted about the weather. His bright-eyed, intense scrutiny made Ukihashi uncomfortable. Finally he said, “My dear, I wonder if you would do an old man a favor.”
“If I can,” Ukihashi said, mystified.
“I would like to set up a romantic liaison between you and Lord Asano. So that the two of you can bed each other, to put it bluntly.”
The request was too shocking and offensive for Ukihashi to even consider. “Why…?”
Sly pleasure crept into Kira’s smile. “Arranging tableaus is my specialty. I do it in my work at court, but this one would be strictly for my own private entertainment. Are you willing?”
“Certainly not!” Ukihashi was so outraged that she forgot her shyness and courtesy. “Lord Asano’s wife is my friend. I would never do that to her or to my husband. I’m a good, faithful wife, and I have no desire to commit adultery for your selfish pleasure. You are a cad for suggesting such a thing!”
Unruffled, Kira said, “Allow me to explain why you should cooperate, my dear. Unless you do, I will tell the shogun that your husband has been speaking ill of him. That’s treason.”
“Oishi hasn’t!” Ukihashi protested. “I’ll swear to it!”
Kira regarded her with pity. “Who is the shogun going to believe? A silly woman or me, his master of ceremonies?” His smile turned cruel. “May I remind you that the family of a traitor shares his punishment? Either you do as I ask, or you and Oishi and your children will be put to death by tomorrow.”
Although the very idea of betraying her friend’s trust and her husband’s love made her ill, Ukihashi had to protect her family. “Promise me that Oishi and Lady Asano will never know.”
“Thank you, my dear.” Kira chortled. “You can trust me to be discreet.”
The next day Ukihashi went to a squalid inn by the river, where Kira had set up the liaison. Nauseated and shaking, she waited in the dingy room. She began to be furious at Lord Asano. How could he go along with Kira’s scheme? Lady Asano had told her about his affairs with other women, but couldn’t he leave the wife of his loyal chief retainer alone?
When Lord Asano arrived, he was so upset that his face twitched and he shook with dry sobs. “I don’t want to do this any more than you do. I respect your husband, and I hate to betray him. But Kira said that if I don’t, he won’t instruct me on court etiquette. I’ll flub the ceremony for the imperial envoys and disgrace myself.”
Ukihashi realized that he was as much an innocent victim as herself. She was appalled at how Kira had manipulated both of them, but it made the situation more bearable. “Let’s get it over with, shall we?”
They turned their backs to each other and undressed. They lay down on the bed and fumbled through the motions of lovemaking. Ukihashi felt dirty being touched by a man not her husband and mortified because she could see Kira’s shadow on the paper windows. Through a hole in one pane, his bright, evil eye gleamed.
In the room next door, Lady Asano watched the couple through a crack in the wall. She pressed her hand over her mouth. She hadn’t heard their whispered conversation. All she knew was that her husband and her friend were lovers. When Kira had told her yesterday, she hadn’t believed him. He’d said she should rent this room and see for herself. And now here was the terrible proof! She didn’t mind so much about her husband-she was used to his affairs. But how could Ukihashi do this to her? Lady Asano would hate her for as long as they lived.
* * *
“That’s why we stopped being friends,” Ukihashi said to Reiko.
“I didn’t tell her I’d seen,” Lady Asano said. “I was too angry and hurt.”
Reiko sat in the steamy kitchen, astounded by what she’d heard. The women’s story of the events that had led up to the vendetta was stranger than she’d ever imagined.
“But I knew she’d found out,” Ukihashi said. “I could tell by the way she acted. I thought Lord Asano had told her. I didn’t know it was Kira. Until now. That’s what we were talking about when you came.” Anger sparked in her tear-swollen eyes. “Kira told us both to keep quiet.” She added regretfully, “And I was too ashamed to tell anyone.”
“Now that Kira is dead, he can’t hurt us,” Lady Asano said. “So I came here to confront Ukihashi.”
“She scolded me until I told her what Kira had done,” Ukihashi said.
It must have been quite an emotional conversation, Reiko thought.
“I realized I’d misjudged her,” Lady Asano said. “We made up.” She and Ukihashi exchanged affectionate smiles.
“When I talked to you before, everything I told you was the truth,” Ukihashi said to Reiko. “I just left out the part about Kira and Lord Asano and me.”
“Me, too,” Lady Asano said.
The implications of their tale stunned Reiko. “Is that why Lord Asano attacked Kira? Because Kira forced him to take part in the tableau?”
“Yes. On top of insulting him and humiliating him.” Lady Asano’s voice was harsh with the rancor she still felt toward Kira. “It must have been the thing that finally made my husband snap. Because he attacked Kira the very next day after the liaison at the inn.”
Reiko was exhilarated. She had discovered the secret that many had speculated upon for almost two years and none had guessed-the motive behind the attack. But the cruelty of the truth lessened her pride in her accomplishment. Kira had turned Lord Asano into a sexual puppet. Lord Asano must have declined to say why he’d attacked Kira because he’d been too ashamed and he’d wanted to protect the women from disgrace. And Kira hadn’t confined himself to tormenting Lord Asano. He’d made Ukihashi and Lady Asano part of his game. Kira had been a monster who’d enjoyed shaming other people and watching them suffer. Reiko could believe he’d deserved to die.
“What will you do, now that you know?” Ukihashi said. She and Lady Asano regarded Reiko with fear that their candor had averted one threat but brought on another that was worse.
“I’ll have to tell my husband,” Reiko said.
Ukihashi leaned her elbows on the table piled with fish and hid her face in her hands, heedless of the viscera on them. “I can’t bear for it to become public! I don’t want Oishi to know what I did!”
Reiko recalled her first talk with Ukihashi, when the woman had expressed such hatred toward her husband. Why should Ukihashi mind what Oishi thought of her now? She must care more for him than she would admit.
“I think that since we gave you what you wanted, you should do something for us,” Lady Asano said. “Can’t you and your husband keep our secret to yourselves?”
Reiko felt that she did owe the women a favor. “We’ll try.”
Ukihashi dropped her hands. Her face was smeared with slime from the fish. “Will it make any difference for the forty-seven ronin?”
“I don’t know,” Reiko said, honestly at a loss. She hadn’t had time to think of all its ramifications. “Maybe.” Eager to bring Sano her new evidence, she rose.
The women rose, too, as if they didn’t want Reiko to leave without giving them more reassurances. Lady Asano said, “Now do you believe that we had nothing to do with the attack on your father? We won’t get in trouble?”
“Yes.” Reiko truly did. The air around the women seemed clearer than when she’d arrived; her sense that they were hiding something was gone.