In the place of honor nearest the alcove that held a calligraphy scroll and a porcelain vase of white azaleas were two women dressed in gray. The elder lay on her back, her sock-clad feet pointed at the ceiling and arms rigid at her sides, on the tatami floor. The younger woman knelt by her, pressing a cloth pad to her forehead. The pad was a poultice-a bundle of herbs that gave off a musty, medicinal odor. When Sano, Reiko, and Masahiro approached, the kneeling woman helped the prone one sit up. Sano and his family knelt and bowed to their guests.
“Greetings, Lady Nobuko,” Sano said. “Your visit does us an honor.”
“My apologies for behaving in this unseemly fashion.” Pain tightened the older woman’s crisp, elegant speech. Lying on the floor had disheveled her knot of silver-streaked hair. “My headache is especially bad today.”
Although one of the most privileged women in Japan, she was as emaciated as beggars on the streets. Knobby shoulder joints protruded through her silk kimono. Tendons in her neck resembled flaccid ropes. Crimson rouge on her cheeks and lips gave her a flush of vitality, but the muscles around her right eye contracted in a spasm that distorted her narrow, sharp-boned face into a disconcerting mask of agony.
“I’m sorry you’re not feeling well.” Sano introduced Reiko and Masahiro.
Lady Nobuko’s good eye studied them with shrewd interest. The other oozed involuntary tears. She seemed to approve; she nodded. “May I introduce Korika, my lady-in-waiting.”
“I’m honored to make your acquaintance,” Korika said in a sweet, breathless voice. In her late forties, she had a comfortably padded figure. Her hair, still mostly black, arranged in a round puff, emphasized the broadness of her face. Her forehead was so low that the eyebrows painted on it almost touched her hairline. Her wide smile, and eyes as black and shiny as berries, had an intense, eager-to-please expression.
“May I offer you refreshments?” Reiko asked.
“No, please.” Lady Nobuko grimaced, as if nauseated by the mere thought of food and drink. “You must be wondering why I am here, so I will come right to the point. I must speak to you about Tsuruhime.”
Her voice broke on a sob. Tears poured from both her eyes. Korika patted her hand consolingly. Although the shogun didn’t mourn his daughter, his wife did.
“I’m so sorry,” Reiko said with quiet compassion. “I understand that you and Tsuruhime were very close?”
Nodding, Lady Nobuko composed herself. “I was with her when she died. I’m only her stepmother, but I loved her as if she were my own child.”
“Wasn’t her own mother killed by the earthquake?” Sano recalled that Tsuruhime’s mother had been one of the shogun’s concubines.
“Yes, when part of the Large Interior collapsed,” Lady Nobuko said. The Large Interior was the section of the palace that housed the shogun’s female concubines, relatives, and their attendants and maids. “But even before then, Tsuruhime relied on me for guidance.”
“Her own mother was a silly, flighty woman who had no business raising the shogun’s daughter,” Korika said.
“Don’t speak ill of the dead,” Lady Nobuko said, without rancor. Loud hammering came from the part of the house under construction. A wince further distorted her face.
Sano started to rise. “I’ll tell the men to stop working.”
“No.” Lady Nobuko lifted a crabbed hand to forestall him. “The noise will prevent eavesdropping. I do not want anyone outside this room to hear what I have to say.” She pitched her voice so that it was barely audible over the noise. “Tsuruhime was murdered.”
Surprise jarred Sano and showed on Reiko’s and Masahiro’s faces. “I thought she died of smallpox,” Sano said.
“Indeed she did,” Lady Nobuko said, “but it was not a natural death.”
“How do you know?” Sano asked.
Lady Nobuko turned to her lady-in-waiting. “Tell them what happened.”
Nervous yet pleased to be the center of attention, Korika said, “It was a few days before Tsuruhime fell ill. My lady and I were visiting her. We decided to walk in the garden. Tsuruhime asked me to fetch her cloak from her room. As I was looking through the cabinet, I saw an old cotton bedsheet wadded up on a shelf among her kimonos. It was soiled with dried blood and yellowish stains.” Repugnance wrinkled her nose. “I wondered what such a filthy sheet was doing there. I meant to tell the maid to throw it away, but I forgot. I didn’t remember it until this morning. I looked for it, and it was gone.”
“Korika told me about the sheet,” Lady Nobuko said. “I think it belonged to someone else who’d had smallpox, and it was soiled with blood and pus from that person’s sores. I believe it was put there to infect Tsuruhime.”
“I’ve heard that soiled bedclothes can spread the disease to people who handle them,” Sano said, intrigued yet doubtful. “But how can you be sure that this sheet was in fact contaminated with smallpox?”
“My intuition tells me,” Lady Nobuko said.
Sano looked askance at her. Reiko frowned at him. She trusted in the veracity of female intuition; he was skeptical.
“Supposing the sheet was contaminated,” Reiko said, “did anyone else in the household get smallpox?”
“No.” Lady Nobuko sounded annoyed because logic discredited her belief.
“If Tsuruhime was deliberately infected,” Reiko said, “then why?”
“To eliminate her without the appearance of foul play,” Lady Nobuko said.
Korika spoke up, eager to support her mistress. “It was pure accident that I saw the sheet. If I hadn’t, nobody would suspect she was murdered.”
“Suppose you’re right.” Sano felt Lady Nobuko’s certainty eroding his objectivity. “Then who killed Tsuruhime?”
“I am right,” Lady Nobuko declared. “It was Yanagisawa.”
The hammering stopped for a moment. In the sudden silence Sano felt shock course through him and Reiko and Masahiro. His heart began to pound.
“You think Yanagisawa planted a smallpox-infested sheet in Tsuruhime’s room?” Reiko sounded astonished, dubious.
“No,” Lady Nobuko said, “he wouldn’t risk infecting himself or getting caught. But he was responsible. That’s why I’m here. I want you to prove he’s guilty.”
Sano remembered that she had good reason for thinking Yanagisawa capable of a crime as evil as murdering his lord’s daughter. She also had good reason to want to get him in trouble. And she wasn’t alone in her wish.
“This is our chance to take Yanagisawa down!” Masahiro exclaimed.
“Evidence that he murdered the shogun’s daughter would be a perfect weapon against him,” Reiko agreed.
“Your wife and son are as intelligent as I’ve heard.” The undistorted side of Lady Nobuko’s mouth smiled. “They realize that our interests coincide, Honorable Chamberlain Sano. Or should I say, ‘Honorable Chief Rebuilding Magistrate’?”
“So you know what happened today,” Sano said, disconcerted.
“Yes. I employ people to keep me informed about what goes on at court. I also know that my husband has installed Yanagisawa’s so-called adopted son as his heir and successor, and that you are far from pleased.”
“That’s right.” Sano was tempted to leap at the opportunity to bring about Yanagisawa’s downfall. Despite his hunger for vengeance, he tried to keep a level head. “But let’s not get carried away before we examine your theory. Why would Yanagisawa want Tsuruhime dead?”
“Yanagisawa has fought an uphill battle to put Yoshisato in line to rule Japan,” Lady Nobuko said. “Too many people aren’t convinced he’s the shogun’s son. Yanagisawa can’t keep down all the dissent forever. The last thing he needs is competition for Yoshisato. My husband isn’t likely to father any more children.” Lady Nobuko evidently knew his character despite the fact that their marriage was a political alliance between clans rather than an intimate union, and Sano knew they rarely even spoke. “If Tsuruhime had lived, she could have borne a son who would have been an undisputed descendant of the shogun.”
No one had ever challenged her pedigree.