Suddenly Chieftain Awetok spoke in a tone of command. Everyone paused, turning to him in surprise. He raised his hand, spoke again. An excited murmur swept through the natives.
“He says to wait,” the Rat said. “He wants to perform a special ritual.
“What kind of ritual?” Sano asked.
The chieftain spoke. Gizaemon said, “A trial by ordeal. It’s the Ezo custom when one of them is murdered. They dip their hands in boiling water.” The native men set an urn on the hot charcoal brazier they’d brought. “If they’re guilty, they get scalded. If they’re innocent, the spirit of the victim protects them, and the hot water doesn’t burn them.”
A buzz of disapproval arose among the Japanese officials. Lord Matsumae regarded the Ainu with skepticism and hope. “Can this really determine who killed Tekare?”
“Of course not,” the gold merchant said scornfully.
“It’s just barbarian foolishness,” Gizaemon said. “Don’t allow it, Honorable Nephew.”
The native men began protesting. “They say they’ve been unjustly accused,” the Rat said. “They want a chance to prove their innocence. And they want everyone else to be tested, to find out who’s guilty.”
Urahenka stood beside the brazier. He flung off his right mitten and held up his bare hand.
Sano said, “I order the trial to proceed.” Not that he believed in magic rituals, but he was amenable to anything that might shed light on the crime that he’d taken responsibility for solving. And if Lord Matsumae took the test and scalded himself, so much the better.
“You’re not in charge here, Honorable Chamberlain,” Gizaemon said. “And I, for one, won’t play along.”
“Neither will I,” said Daigoro.
Lord Matsumae vacillated, besieged by doubt, confusion, and what might have been fear, then spoke in Tekare’s voice: “I want to find out who killed me. Let there be a trial.”
21
Reiko trudged through the forest. Icicles hung like sculpted fangs on the pine boughs and snow covered the path. She stepped in footprints that had earlier broken the white crust. As the terrain inclined uphill she panted with fatigue, but she hurried faster, anxious to reach the hot spring before the Matsumae folk noticed her absence from the funeral procession. Her anger at Lilac kept her going.
Anger was a distraction from grief, a temporary antidote for pain. Now past the first shock of Masahiro’s death, Reiko wanted to punish someone for it. She was powerless against Lord Matsumae, and she couldn’t strike out at Lord Matsudaira, who had sent her son to Ezogashima but was far out of reach, but she had a convenient target in Lilac, who had deceived her. By the time she smelled the sulfurous odor of the hot spring, she was ready for combat.
She rounded a curve, and the path ended at an irregularly shaped pond about fifteen paces wide and twenty paces long, set in a wide clearing. Rocks jutted up from the earth around the pond, forming a low, craggy wall. A cloud of steam hid the water that Reiko heard percolating beneath the pond’s surface. The heat had melted the snow off the rocks. Near a gap between them lay folded clothes beside a pair of boots.
“Lilac!” Reiko called. “I want to talk to you.”
There was no answer, no sound except the burbling water. Maybe Lilac was playing games, teasing Reiko again. Infuriated, Reiko moved to the pool’s edge. She crouched in the gap between the rocks, fanned at the steam with her hand, and saw a dark object partly submerged in the water nearby. It was the top of a head. Long black hair floated from it.
“There’s no use hiding,” Reiko said. “You’ll have to come up for air eventually.”
A moment passed. Lilac didn’t move. Reiko grabbed Lilac’s hair and pulled. Steam obscured her vision. She felt the heavy weight of the girl dragging through the warm water that lapped onto her gloves. The motion disturbed the steam, which thinned enough for Reiko to see the pale, long body floating on its stomach beneath the surface. Lilac’s head butted up against the rocks. Reiko was puzzled because Lilac didn’t resist. With an effort that strained her muscles and splashed water onto herself, she turned Lilac.
The girl rolled face-up. Her skin was a bright, unnatural pink. Waves bobbed her limbs. Her mouth gaped, filled with water that vaporized in the cold air. Her open eyes had a cloudy, blank appearance, like those of a steamed fish. She was dead. The hot water had begun to cook her.
Reiko screamed, recoiled, and lost her balance. She fell backward onto the hard, slick ice around the spring. Her horror was mixed with shame for her vindictive thoughts toward Lilac. No matter how venal Lilac had been, she hadn’t deserved to die.
The wind stirred the pines. Icicles rattled like bones, fell, and stabbed the snow. Panic launched Reiko to her feet. She ran away from the hot spring as fast as she could go.
At the graveyard, the water in the urn began to boil. Chieftain Awetok removed his right glove. He and Urahenka plunged their hands into the urn. The assembly gasped. Urahenka tried to suppress a cry but failed. The chieftain didn’t react at all. He spoke a command; he and Urahenka pulled their dripping, steaming hands out of the water. Six times they performed this torture. Urahenka shuddered. Involuntary tears ran down his tanned face. But Awetok’s remained calm; he appeared impervious to the pain. At last he and Urahenka extended their hands to the audience. He spoke, eyes flashing.
“”The spirit of Tekare has proclaimed us to be innocent of her murder,“” the Rat translated. “”Come and behold the proof.“”
Everyone rushed forward to inspect the natives’ hands. Sano was amazed to see that they appeared perfectly normal. Exclamations of awe arose.
Urahenka shouted triumphant words. The Rat said, “‘We told you that we didn’t kill Tekare. Do you believe us now?”“
“It’s a trick,” the gold merchant huffed.
“How did they do it?” Hirata quickly challenged him.
“Some native potion on their hands, maybe.”
Sano couldn’t imagine any potion would protect flesh from boiling water, and he knew that humans were capable of wondrous feats. Martial arts history was full of examples. Maybe the Ainu had discovered a mental discipline for controlling their bodies and resisting injury. Or maybe their unmarred hands were in fact proof that Chieftain Awetok and Urahenka were innocent.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Gizaemon said. “Trial by ordeal isn’t recognized by Japanese law.”
But Lord Matsumae beheld the Ainu as if the miracle had shaken him to his bones. Tekare’s aspect cloaked his features; her voice said, “If they didn’t kill me, then who did?”
Urahenka beckoned and hurled a loud verbal challenge at the audience; he pointed at the boiling water.
Appalled glances flashed from person to person. Sudden piercing cries sounded from a distance. Everyone turned to see Reiko burst out of the forest. She ran to Sano and collapsed, moaning, in his arms.
“Where have you been?” he asked, upset because he hadn’t noticed she was gone. His thoughts of vengeance had crowded even Reiko out of his mind. “What’s wrong?”
The funeral party crowded around them. Reiko blurted, “Lilac is dead.”
Sano had to think a moment before he remembered that Lilac was the maid who’d befriended Reiko. Shock appeared on the faces of the Japanese, who understood what Reiko had said, and on those of the natives because they sensed it meant trouble had struck again.
“How?” Sano said as possible implications occurred to him. “Where?”
Reiko pointed. “At the hot spring.”
The trial by ordeal was forgotten as the funeral party hurried from the cemetery. Hirata and the native men reached the hot spring first, Gizaemon and the soldiers next. Lord Matsumae shambled up the path in their wake. Sano stopped Reiko short of their destination, while the other women trailed behind them. He left her with the detectives, said “Look after her,” then joined the scene at the spring. Hirata and Urahenka hauled Lilac from the pool and laid her on the ground. Water ran off her, hissing as it melted the snow. Her body steamed like a boiled lobster.