Because they couldn’t punish the men, they took out their jealousy on the concubines, Reiko realized. And the concubines couldn’t fight back because if they made trouble, they and their people would be punished. Reiko began to pity the Ezo.
“But Lady Matsumae started treating them even worse when her daughter died.”
Comprehension stole through Reiko. “When was this?”
“Last spring.”
“How old was her daughter?”
“Eight years.”
The same age as Masahiro. “Has she any other children?”
“No.” Lilac added, “Lord Matsumae adopted a cousin as his heir. She’s too old to have any more.”
At last Reiko understood why Lady Matsumae had reacted so violently when asked whether she had any children and if she knew what it was like to lose one. Reiko had unintentionally touched a raw wound. Now she pitied Lady Matsumae; she regretted her own words and the fact that she’d provoked Lady Matsumae’s cruelty toward the helpless Ezo concubine. She wondered how Lady Matsumae’s daughter had died, but shied from talking about a child’s death while her own son was missing. And she had more pressing concerns.
“I want to find my son,” she said. “Can you help me?”
Lilac drew back from Reiko. Her eagerness to please dissolved into worry.
“You know something, don’t you?” When Lilac wouldn’t meet her eyes, Reiko pleaded, “Tell me!”
“I think I saw him,” Lilac said reluctantly.
Dizzied by hope, Reiko said, “When was this? Where?”
“About a month ago. Here at the castle. A little boy, with three soldiers. I’d never seen them before.”
They had to have been Masahiro escorted by Lord Matsudaira’s men, Reiko thought. The hesitation in Lilac’s speech made it clear that she didn’t want to tell this story because the ending wouldn’t please Reiko, but Reiko had to know the truth. “What happened?” she demanded.
Lilac sighed. “Lord Matsumae’s troops brought them inside the palace, to Lord Matsumae’s chambers.”
Lord Matsumae had lied when he’d told Sano he didn’t know anything about Masahiro, when he’d claimed the boy had never reached Fukuyama City.
“I don’t know what happened in there, but…”
“Go on,” Reiko prompted, even though dread filled her.
“After a while, the troops brought out the soldiers. They had ropes wound around them, and gags in their mouths. The troops took them to the courtyard. They made them kneel down. And then-” Lilac gulped. “They cut off their heads.”
Reiko felt a terrible darkness crowding out all the light in the world. There was no reason to think that Lord Matsumae had spared her son after killing his escorts. “What about the boy?” She forced the words out past the breath caught inside her.
“I don’t know,” Lilac said. “He wasn’t with the soldiers.”
A fragile, tenuous relief seeped through Reiko. If Masahiro hadn’t been killed during the execution Lilac had seen, perhaps he was still alive. “What happened to him?” she almost didn’t dare to ask.
“I don’t know. He never came out of the palace, at least not that I saw.”
He could have been killed inside by Lord Matsumae, who’s mad enough to murder the chamberlain’s child. The voice of her common sense taunted Reiko. Lord Matsumae lied because he didn’t want Sano to know he’d killed Masahiro. He was sane enough to be afraid of punishment. But Reiko’s spirit refused to believe it.
“Have you seen him again?” Reiko demanded.
Lilac recoiled, frightened by the intensity of Reiko’s gaze. “No.”
“Could he still be in the castle?” Reiko sat very still, her ears pricked, her eyes wide, mouth open, every sense straining to detect her son’s whereabouts.
“He could,” Lilac said, but she sounded more as if she wanted to please Reiko than as if she thought so.
One of the other maids peeked in the door. “Lilac! Lady Matsumae wants you.”
“I have to go,” Lilac said, rising.
Reiko clutched her arm and whispered, “Can you find out if my son is here? Will you look for him for me? Please!”
Sly satisfaction glittered through the sympathy in Lilac’s eyes. “I’ll try.”
As she hurried off, Reiko knew that she’d put herself right where Lilac wanted, in her debt. Reiko didn’t trust someone who would take advantage of the mother of a kidnapped child, but she would deal with all the gods of evil to find Masahiro. At least now she had more hope than before, something else to wait for besides news from Sano. But the waiting grew even harder to bear. With every moment that passed, Reiko’s patience stretched beyond the limits of frustration.
The other maids came to sweep her room. When they finished, they fastened their fur-lined coats and pulled their leather hoods over their heads, preparing to go out into the cold. Inspiration flashed through Reiko as she looked at their clothes, then at her own that Lilac had given her. She quickly tagged after them. People took servants for granted, didn’t pay them much attention. The maids were chattering together and didn’t seem to notice Reiko. She kept her head down, and the guards at the door didn’t look twice at her as she walked past them out the door.
7
Gizaemon and the guards led Sano and Hirata outside, to a tea ceremony cottage with a thatched roof, plank walls, and a stone basin by the door for washing hands before entering. This symbol of Japanese high culture looked out of place in the alien north. Sano felt more unsettled than comforted by the familiar sight, as if he’d flown to the moon only to discover trappings of home. He had thought that after what he’d already experienced here, nothing else could shock him, but when he stepped inside the cottage with Hirata and Gizaemon, he found out how wrong he’d been.
The corpse lay in a pine coffin set on the tatami floor, between the gnarled wooden columns that supported the ceiling. Strewn around it were gold lotus flowers and brass incense burners. Tekare wore a lavish gold silk brocade kimono embroidered with darker gold water lilies. Her thick, wavy black hair fanned across the pillow under her head. Her eyes were closed, her arms laid at her sides. Lord Matsumae had enshrined his beloved’s remains. The cold had semi-preserved her, although her face was withered, sunken. At first Sano thought the bluish discoloration around her mouth was decay, but then he realized it was a tattoo such as Reiko had described seeing on the Ezo concubines.
“Lord Matsumae’s dead mistress was an Ezo woman,” Sano said.
As he and Hirata stood gazing down at the corpse, he noticed the flattened silk cushion beside Tekare’s head. Lord Matsumae must spend hours kneeling beside her. Mourning her. Worshipping her. Sano thought about the scene in Lord Matsumae’s chamber. His intellect couldn’t accept what he’d seen, heard, and felt. Surely the dead Tekare hadn’t taken over Lord Matsumae; surely his madness made him act out her persona. But spirit possession appeared to be the prevalent belief about what ailed him, and Sano-his prisoner-didn’t have much choice except to operate under the same assumption.
“Taking Ezo women as concubines is common in these parts,” Gizaemon said. “Not enough Japanese women, and some men have a taste for native meat.”
Sano raised his eyebrows at the crude remark. “You don’t approve?
“Only because of the trouble it can cause. Which you’ve seen with my nephew.”
“Didn’t you like Tekare?” Hirata asked.
“She was as good as any of them.”
“Is it Ezo in general you don’t care for?”
Gizaemon shrugged. “They have their uses. If not for them, my clan would be foot-soldiers for the shogun instead of ruling a trade monopoly.”
Hirata exchanged glances with Sano as they noted Gizaemon’s attitude. Sano asked, “Can you tell me how she died?”
“She was shot with a spring-bow. Ever seen one?” When Sano shook his head, Gizaemon explained, “It’s for hunting, a bow and arrow rigged with a string that’s tied across a path. When an animal trips the string, the bow lets loose. Except in this case, it wasn’t a deer that the arrow hit.”