“Worse.” Gizaemon’s rough features were etched with concern. “Bad idea to bother him now. Advise you to wait.”
“That’s not possible.” The investigation must continue. Everything depended on it. Every step of it required approval from Lord Matsumae, and Sano wasn’t going to tolerate obstruction from Gizaemon, a suspect.
Gizaemon shrugged. “Your funeral.”
Opening a gate, he ushered them into a forest preserve. Through the evergreen foliage and bare branches Sano saw a tall, square, half-timbered building. Piercing shrieks came from it.
“Lord Matsumae is inspecting his hawks. This is where he keeps them,” Gizaemon said.
He led Sano and Hirata inside the building. The shrieks blared at Sano. He saw some thirty birds of prey tethered to perches, enormous eagles and smaller hawks and falcons. Some screamed incessantly, their curved beaks opening and closing, their wild eyes glaring. Others wore leather hoods over their heads; they sat still and quiet. Huge wings flapped, stirring air laden with the pungent chicken-coop smell of bird dung and the stench of decayed meat.
Lord Matsumae stood in the center of the room, berating three samurai. “These mews are filthy. You’ve been neglecting my precious hawks.”
The men mumbled apologies. Gizaemon said close to Sano’s ear, “The keepers have been busy guarding the ports, as he ordered them to do. This is the first attention he’s paid his hawks since that woman was murdered.”
“You two clean this place up at once,” Lord Matsumae said, pointing at the men. He was as untidy as the mews, his whiskers growing into a straggly beard, his hair long and uncombed; he wore a tattered fur coat and muddy, scuffed leather boots. “And you help me inspect the hawks.”
The two samurai began sweeping up dung, feathers, and castings. The other trailed Lord Matsumae, who headed toward Sano. “What do you want?” Lord Matsumae asked.
Sano was disturbed to see two pinpoints of light in each of his eyes, one from his own soul, the other from the spirit that possessed him. “To tell you my plans for today.”
“Very well,” Lord Matsumae said with an agreeability that Sano didn’t trust. “We can talk while I inspect my hawks.”
The keeper flung a heavy cloth over a sleek gray falcon and lifted her off her perch. She snapped at Lord Matsumae as he examined her talons, beak, eyes, and plumage.
“Clean these talons,” he said. “Fix these broken feathers. She’s my gift to the shogun. She has to be perfect.”
He seemed to have forgotten that he was in trouble for neglecting to send the shogun any gifts. Sano could feel Tekare’s watchful, menacing presence in him. The keeper put the falcon back on her perch. Lord Matsumae tossed the bird a mouse from a bucket full of dead rodents. She gulped it down.
“I’d like Hirata-san to interview the Ezo again,” Sano said. “We ask your permission for him to go to their camp this morning.”
Gizaemon said, under his breath, “Finally someone’s looking for the killer in the right place.”
“Permission granted,” Lord Matsumae said as he and the keeper grappled with another hawk that struggled under the cloth and screamed. But he immediately spoke again, in Tekare’s accented voice, sharp with suspicion: “Why would you let him go after my people?”
He replied in his own voice, “They might have killed you.”
“So might your people have. Would you let them get away with my murder?”
“No, my beloved.” Lord Matsumae’s manner alternated between masculine and feminine. “I just want to be sure not to miss anything.”
Sano listened, appalled. Now Lord Matsumae was not only speaking in Tekare’s tongue, he was carrying on a conversation with her spirit, which had gained a stronger hold on him.
Gizaemon whispered, “I warned you.” He ordered three guards to take Hirata to the camp and said, “He causes any trouble, you’ll be posted to the far north.”
“Take Marume and the Rat with you,” Sano said to Hirata.
Hirata went off with his escorts. Sano said, “Lord Matsumae, I would like permission for my wife to visit yours.”
“I advise against that,” Gizaemon said.
“Oh?” Lord Matsumae scraped dirt off a hawk’s talons with a knife. “Why?”
“Lady Reiko might try to run away again. She should be confined to her quarters, where we can watch her.”
“She’s promised me that she’ll behave herself,” Sano said.
“It’s still not a good idea,” Gizaemon said. “Lady Matsumae is in mourning. She won’t want to be bothered with entertaining a guest.
His concern for Lady Matsumae seemed to Sano more an excuse to keep her and Reiko apart than motivated by genuine sympathy for the bereaved woman. “Perhaps my wife’s company would cheer up Lady Matsumae,” Sano said.
“I think not,” Gizaemon said. “Better forbid this visit, Honorable Nephew.”
Sano wondered whether Gizaemon had guessed that Reiko was working with him on the murder investigation and intended to pump Lady Matsumae for evidence. Sano’s suspicions toward Gizaemon increased.
“What do you think, my beloved?” Lord Matsumae said. He replied in Tekare’s voice, “I think it’s a good idea,” then said in his own voice, “I’ll grant permission for Lady Reiko to visit my wife.”
Now Sano wondered if he-or Tekare-suspected that his wife had been involved in the murder.
Intent on the falcon he was examining, Lord Matsumae gave no sign that Sano could see. “Just make sure the guards stay near her at all times, Uncle.”
“As you wish.” Gizaemon’s dark look said how much he hated being overruled by a ghost although not by his nephew.
The birds were calmer now. Only the largest, a magnificent eagle with gold plumage, still shrieked. Lord Matsumae slipped a gauntlet on his left hand and whistled. With a great flap of wings, the eagle leaped onto his fist. He rewarded the eagle with a dead mouse. Sano thought how barbaric seemed the ancient sport of falconry. Since Buddhism had taken root in Japan some eleven centuries ago, hunting had fallen into disfavor because Buddhist doctrine forbade eating meat. Most samurai kept falcons as a mere bow to tradition. But Ezogashima was a world apart from mainstream Japanese society. Here, blood sport flourished. But Sano was more interested in a different kind of hunt: the search for a killer.
What else are you going to do?“ Lord Matsumae asked. Detective Fukida and I will examine the scene of the murder,” Sano said.
That’s a waste of time,“ Gizaemon scoffed. ”There’s nothing left to see.“
“I still need to have a look.” Sano wondered what Gizaemon didn’t want him to find.
“That’s fine with me.” Lord Matsumae unfastened the tether that tied the eagle to its perch. “And me,” echoed Tekare’s voice. He cast the bird off his fist. It flew in circles while the other birds shrieked and flapped as if envious of its freedom. “Anything else?”
“I have a request from the Ezo,” Sano said. “They ask permission to hold a funeral for Tekare.”
“A funeral? To bury her in the ground?” Lord Matsumae exclaimed in horror. “You want to take her away from me!” He clutched his arms as if embracing his dead mistress in them. “Her remains are all I have left of her. How can you ask me to give them up?”
“The Ezo say a funeral will help her cross over to the spirit world,” Sano said. “She’ll stop haunting you.”
“But I don’t want her to cross over. I don’t want her to leave me!”
Lord Matsumae waved his arms. One struck the eagle as it flew by him. Confused or frightened, it screeched and flew straight at Sano.
“Look out!” Detective Fukida said.
The eagle came so near Sano that he could see the luminous flecks in its golden eyes. Ducking, he felt wings brush his head. Lord Matsumae guffawed and cackled. Sano dodged the eagle as it dived repeatedly at him while the other falcons set up a din of screeches. Fukida ran after the bird and yelled. It swooped toward him, then Sano again. Hands raised up to protect himself from its talons, Sano said, “A funeral could reveal the truth about Tekare’s murder.”
“Nonsense,” Lord Matsumae began, then said in Tekare’s voice, “Wait, my lord. He may be right.”
“But I don’t want you to go to the spirit world, my beloved. I don’t want you to leave me.”