“We know that,” Kitano said impatiently. “What did General Otani say?”
“He gave me the power of levitation.” Hirata stalled, trying to think of a good lie.
Surprise lifted Tahara’s eyebrow. The other men had greater powers than Hirata, and they liked it that way. “What does he want us to do?”
Hirata avoided looking at Deguchi. “He said to clear the earthquake debris out of the tributary canal in Kanda tomorrow.”
“What for?” Kitano asked.
“He didn’t say.”
Tahara and Kitano shrugged. The ghost often told them to do menial work that had no apparent purpose. “What else happened?” Tahara asked.
Hirata forced himself to meet the men’s gazes. “Nothing.”
“Well,” Tahara said, “I guess we’ll clear the canal and wait to see the results.”
Hirata could tell that the three didn’t trust him any more than he trusted them. He inwardly cringed from the suspicion in Deguchi’s glowing eyes. He spoke with all the nonchalance he could muster. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the canal, then.”
“Tomorrow,” Kitano said. “You’d better be there.”
Walking down the trail to his horse, Hirata felt shaken to the bone. He hadn’t thought that things could get worse, but they had. If he tried to kill Deguchi but wasn’t strong enough, then Deguchi would kill him. If he succeeded in killing Deguchi, then Tahara and Kitano would kill him because he’d betrayed the secret society; they would never believe the ghost had told him to do it. If he didn’t kill Deguchi, the ghost would kill him the next time the men forced him to participate in a ritual.
What in heaven should he do?
15
Shortly after daybreak, Sano stepped out of his mansion. The sky was a pale, luminous blue, but the sun hadn’t risen high enough to chase away the shadows that filled the grounds. The guard Sano had assigned to lead the search party walked in through the gate and said, “We finished searching the castle. We didn’t find the little girl.”
On the veranda Midori began crying. Reiko tried to comfort her. They’d sat up all night, waiting for news of Taeko.
“Search outside the castle,” Sano said, disturbed because Taeko had been missing for almost an entire day and the city was dangerous. “She can’t have gone far,” he added, to console Midori. “I’m sure she’ll be brought home soon.”
“Yes, master.” The guard bowed and hurried away.
The women went back in the house. Masahiro ambled onto the veranda, dressed in his white martial arts practice uniform. Yawning, he said, “What’s going on?”
For the past few months Masahiro had been sleeping so soundly that almost nothing could rouse him and he had trouble getting up in the morning. Sano supposed he was growing so fast that he needed extra rest. He’d slept through the excitement last night. When Sano told him about Taeko, his eyes opened wide with dismay.
“She’s missing?” Still not fully awake, Masahiro said, “I’ll help look for her.”
“No, there are enough people searching already,” Sano said. “You have your martial arts lesson, then school with your tutor, then your work.” That was Masahiro’s routine, which the earthquake had disrupted for several months. Sano had to be strict about maintaining the routine, or Masahiro wouldn’t get a proper education, and Masahiro couldn’t shirk his page duties. “If you go delivering messages around the city later, you can keep an eye out for Taeko.”
Masahiro started to object, but Sano said, “No excuses. You have your duties. Other things will have to wait.”
And Masahiro wasn’t the only one with duties. Sano had his work as Chief Rebuilding Magistrate and the murder investigation to finish.
* * *
“Hey, you!”
The loud call startled Taeko awake. At first she didn’t know where she was. Lying on a hard surface, underneath a scratchy blanket, she heard strange noises and many people moving around. This wasn’t her room at home. Bolting upright, Taeko saw women rising from the thin mattresses they’d slept on amid washtubs. Sunlight filtered through a ceiling made of oiled canvas. She smelled lye soap. She was in the laundry tent at Lord Tsunanori’s estate.
Yesterday, after she’d worked until sundown, the housekeeper had given her a mattress and blanket and told her to sleep wherever she could find space. Miserable and homesick, she’d thought she wouldn’t be able to sleep in such a cold, uncomfortable place with so many strangers. But she’d been so tired, she’d fallen asleep immediately. Her heart sank. By now her mother must have discovered she wasn’t at home. Her mother must be terribly worried.
“You’d better get up if you want something to eat,” said the girl beside her, who’d wakened her. The girl had a round, sullen face; her name was Kiku.
Taeko scrambled out of bed, shivering in the cold, wearing the wrinkled clothes she’d slept in. She and the other maids hung their mattresses and blankets on a line outside to air. Then they lined up to use the few privies. By the time her turn came, Taeko was pressing her legs together, trying desperately not to wet herself. Then she waited in line to strip and wash in a basin in another tent. The housekeeper inspected the girls to make sure they were clean enough. Taeko was self-conscious because she’d never undressed in front of strangers. Since she had no fresh clothes, the housekeeper gave her a rough blue cotton kimono and white head kerchief. Joining the line for breakfast, Taeko felt like a different person.
Breakfast was a cup of tea and a bowl of noodles with dried fish and pickled vegetables. The girls crouched in the yard to eat. The tea was lukewarm and bitter, the gruel watery, the fish and pickles too sour. Taeko could barely eat although she was starved. She missed her mother so much that tears fell into her tea.
But she couldn’t go home yet. She had to find Masahiro a witness-whatever that was.
* * *
A room in the rebuilding magistrates’ headquarters served as a makeshift court of justice for the new sort of criminals that the earthquake had spawned.
Sano knelt on the dais, flanked by a secretary who sat at a portable desk, and an assistant with a ledger of the cases on the docket. On the floor below him a tray of gravel substituted for the shirasu-the white sand symbolizing truth, normally spread on the floor under a mat on which defendants sat. White sand, like many other items, was scarce in post-earthquake Edo. Criminals were not. The room was jammed with people.
“Honorable Chief Rebuilding Magistrate Sano will hear the first case,” said his assistant, a tired-looking older samurai. “Nagasaka Daiemon, Deputy Custodian of Military Stores at Edo Castle, come forward.”
A man in the front row stood. The last time Sano had met Custodian Nagasaka had been the day after the earthquake, when he’d inspected the damage to the castle. Nagasaka had shown him collapsed arsenal buildings, crushed arquebuses, and gunpowder spoiled by water used to prevent fire and explosions. Sano barely recognized Nagasaka; the man looked so sick and ashen. Nagasaka avoided Sano’s gaze as he knelt by the tray of gravel.
“You are charged with misappropriating government funds.” The assistant called the witnesses, two young spies from the metsuke, the Tokugawa intelligence service.
Kneeling near Custodian Nagasaka, they testified. “We posed as clerks at the arsenal.” “I saw him buy eight hundred guns from the gun maker.” “He wrote in the inventory that a thousand new guns were purchased.” “He kept the rest of the money.”
Nagasaka listened in wordless shame. There seemed little need for a trial; the spies had caught him in the act, and he was so obviously guilty. But Sano must follow court procedure. He said, “You may speak in your own defense.”
“I needed to fix my house. The money was there. I couldn’t resist.” Nagasaka began to weep. “I confess.”