Wente’s eyes were glazed. Immobilized by panic, she’d ceased struggling. Urine stained the snow under her.
Desperate, Reiko said, “All these people are going to see you kill her. They’ll be witnesses.”
Gizaemon sneered. “Too bad.”
He flicked his sword at Wente. The blade slashed her throat. She uttered an awful, gurgling shriek. Blood sprayed from the cut in an obscene red geyser. Gizaemon stepped backward to avoid it. The soldiers let go of Wente. She collapsed onto the snow, her body twitching.
“Wente!” Reiko rushed to kneel beside Wente. She cradled her friend’s head and moaned as she pressed her glove to the wound in a futile attempt to stanch the bleeding. “I’m sorry!”
It was too late for apologies. Wente’s body stilled. The spirit faded from her eyes. Reiko wept for the woman who’d been her loyal friend until the end. Wente finally deserved forgiveness for her part in her sister’s death. She’d paid for her jealousy, her hatred, and her gullibility with her life.
A cold shadow fell upon Reiko. She looked up and saw Gizaemon standing over her, his figure black against the sun.
“The barbarians won’t dare tell, and they don’t matter anyway. The only witness I care about is you, Lady Reiko.” Gizaemon’s tone said he understood that Wente had confessed everything to her. “But you won’t live long enough to talk.”
34
Two soldiers grabbed Reiko. She thrashed with all her might, beating her fists on the men, kicking their stomachs, legs, and groins. They yelled for their comrades to help them. Four, five, six men wrestled with her. Her gloves came off, and she raked her fingernails at the men, but they held her arms and legs immobile even as her body bucked and she tossed her head.
“We’ll take her into the forest, where she’ll never be found,” Gizaemon told the men.
As they bore her away, Reiko couldn’t even scream for help lest her son rush to her rescue and be killed with her.
The sled tracks abruptly ended at the bottom of a trail that led up from the river. Sano and his group jumped off their sleds below the village where Reiko and Wente must have gone. Sano’s heart sank at the sight of troops milling around the huts. Gizaemon had beaten him.
Sano, Hirata, and the detectives climbed the path ahead of Chieftain Awetok and Urahenka. Reaching the village, they found strewn across the ground the dead bodies of native men. Other natives stood surrounded by troops. Horror flooded Sano because Gizaemon’s army had attacked the village. What had become of Reiko and Wente?
The troops turned at the sound of his party’s approach. Sano yelled, “Where’s Gizaemon? Where is my wife?”
They stood dumbfounded by his unexpected arrival. Their surprised gazes shifted beyond him, to their fellow Matsumae troops stampeding up the path behind Sano. They raised their swords and prepared to fight, but Lord Matsumae staggered breathless into the village and ordered, “Stop!”
His hair was wild, his eyes burning in his haggard face, but he’d gained strength during the journey. Vengeance was at hand for him and Tekare. “Lower your weapons! Let us through!”
Shocked to see their master, they moved aside for Sano, Hirata, and the detectives, who hurried through the village with Lord Matsumae and his troops. Sano almost stumbled over the lone dead woman lying with her throat cut, in bloody slush, among the corpses.
It was Wente. Gizaemon had already eliminated his accomplice. Now Sano divined that he was after Reiko, who must have figured out he was the killer and was the only person left to bear witness against him.
Lord Matsumae gaped at Wente’s body, Tekare’s savage aspect darkened his face. He started kicking Wente and cursing her in native language: Tekare was upset because she’d been cheated out of her revenge on her sister. Sano forged onward through the crowd of natives until he glimpsed Reiko in the hands of four soldiers carrying her toward the forest. Gizaemon was with them.
“Gizaemon!” Sano called.
The man turned. Displeasure knitted his brow as he recognized Sano. When he spotted the troops accompanying Sano, shock rearranged his features. He halted; the men carrying Reiko slewed around. Her expression went from terrified to ecstatic.
Although overjoyed to see her, Sano focused his eyes on Gizaemon. “Tell your men to let her go.”
“How in hell did you get out of the castle?”
“Lord Matsumae freed us.”
As Gizaemon’s face went blank with astonished disbelief, Lord Matsumae stepped past his troops and stood beside Sano. “Yes, Uncle, it’s true.”
“Nephew.” Gizaemon swayed as if shock had punched him. “Why?”
Lord Matsumae addressed the soldiers who held Reiko: “Put her down.”
“No, don’t,” Gizaemon sharply countermanded.
The soldiers compromised by lowering Reiko to her feet but holding her arms. She fixed on Sano a look in which hope vied with fright.
“Chamberlain Sano has solved the crime.” Lord Matsumae’s voice shook with anger. “He’s fulfilled his duty to me. Setting him free was the least I could do in return.”
Gizaemon’s complexion paled to an ashy gray as understanding sank in. “What are you doing here?”
“You killed Tekare. I’ve come to make you answer to me,” Lord Matsumae said.
“Chamberlain Sano told you I killed her? That’s nonsense.” Beneath his scorn Gizaemon was clearly distraught. “He’s lying.”
“Evidence doesn’t lie. You left one of your toothpicks in the woods where you set the trap for Tekare,” Lord Matsumae said. “You ought to be more careful where you drop them.”
“I must have dropped it when we were looking for Tekare after she disappeared.” Gizaemon’s jaw shifted as he scrambled for more excuses. “Or Chamberlain Sano planted it. To make me look guilty. To turn you against me.”
“No, Uncle.” Even if Lord Matsumae hadn’t already made up his mind to believe Sano, he’d read the signs of guilt in Gizaemon’s behavior. “You turned against me.” He hurled his pointing finger at Gizaemon, then pounded his fist on his chest. “How?” he demanded in a voice ragged with injury. “How could you betray me by murdering the woman I love?”
This accusation of disloyalty, the worst charge a master could level at a samurai, appeared to shatter something inside Gizaemon. “I would never,” he whispered.
“No more lies! You’re going to tell me the truth if I have to force it out of you!”
Lord Matsumae gestured to his men. They drew their swords and advanced on his uncle. Gizaemon flung up his hands in a gesture of entreaty. “It was for your own good. To protect you from that barbarian whore who was ruining you.”
“Don’t you dare call her a whore!” Lord Matsumae said. “Me a whore,” Tekare’s voice echoed.
“You asked for the truth, now face it,” Gizaemon said in the tone he must have used to discipline his nephew as a child. “That’s what she was. She used men. She used you.”
“She loved me!”
“She blinded you with her charms.” Gizaemon spoke with bitter resentment toward Tekare, with pity for his nephew’s delusion. “She was like a lot of barbarians, hated the Japanese for the wrongs she thought we’d done to her and her people. I saw it in her eyes whenever she looked at any of us. She blamed you, the lord of Ezogashima. She made you pay every time she had another man right under your nose.”
Lord Matsumae said, “You’re wrong!” even as his expression registered dismay at what he saw in the mirror that Gizaemon had held up to his affair with Tekare.
“That love potion she gave you was poison that made you sick and weak. I know-I tested it on a dog. He had a fit, went wild, and died. Same thing would have eventually happened to you if I hadn’t taken action.”
Sano saw that Gizaemon was trying to turn Lord Matsumae’s anger at him onto Tekare. Maybe it would be a good thing if uncle and nephew made up, even it if meant Gizaemon would escape justice. Sano would excuse Gizaemon for the murder and its consequences if only Gizaemon would let Reiko go. Sano saw these thoughts occur to her and raise the hope in her eyes.