But what other avenue of inquiry did Sano have that hadn’t already led him to a dead end? He wouldn’t know whether the Kii clan harbored any suspects better than the merchant Naraya until Chamberlain Yanagisawa told him. He might as well search for the accomplice. And he might as well continue here in the Large Interior, starting with the other people who’d accompanied the shogun’s mother.
“Show me the rooms of all the women in Lady Keisho-in’s entourage,” Sano told Madam Chizuru.
They began with the ladies-in-waiting. Maybe Suiren had lived like a nun, but Sano discovered that these women hadn’t. In their rooms he found gaudy clothing, hair ornaments, makeup, tobacco pipes, playing cards, musical instruments, and sake jars. He also found erotic pictures and carved jade phalluses apparently used for self-pleasure. Sano felt ashamed to discover the secrets of the dead women, especially since Madam Chizuru vouched for the good character of each. And he found nothing to indicate that they’d collaborated with the criminal who’d abducted their mistress. He believed they were all innocent victims, and his opinion of Hoshina’s theory sank lower. After replacing their possessions in the cabinets, he turned to Chizuru.
“I’ll inspect the maids’ quarters now,” he said.
The maids lived crowded into a communal room in a separate wing of the Large Interior. While Chizuru watched from the doorway, Sano went through the motions of examining the few cheap garments and trinkets left in the plain wooden cupboards by the maids killed during the massacre. As he pulled a blue-and-white striped kimono from a drawer, something jingled. He put his hand into the sleeve of the garment and removed a cloth pouch tied with a drawstring. He emptied the pouch into his hand. Five gold coins gleamed up at him.
“Who owned this?” he asked, holding up the kimono for Chizuru to see.
“That belonged to Lady Keisho-in’s youngest maid,” Chizuru said. “Her name was Mariko.” Her tone combined curiosity with apprehension. “What have you found?”
Sano showed her the coins. “How did Mariko come to have these?”
“I don’t know.” A troubled expression stole over Chizuru’s face. “The servants get paid in coppers, not gold. It would have taken years for Mariko to earn that much money, and she’d only worked here six months.”
“Where else might she have gotten the money?” Sano asked.
Chizuru shook her head. “Mariko came from a poor family.”
A thrill of excitation reverberated through Sano as Hoshina’s theory gained new credence. Sano conjectured that the money was a bribe from th Dragon King, and Mariko his spy who’d informed him about Lady Keisho-in’s trip. Maybe she’d hidden the coins before she’d left because she didn’t want to risk losing them or having them stolen on the highway. Maybe the Dragon King had killed her with the rest of the entourage to prevent her from ever exposing him.
Maybe she hadn’t known how he’d meant to use the information she’d given him, or that she would never return to spend her blood money. And Hoshina’s theory might prove correct even if he’d mis-identified the Dragon King’s accomplice. Maybe Sano owed Hoshina more respect than he’d paid him.
“Did Mariko go out of the castle after Lady Keisho-in announced her plans for the trip?” Sano said.
“As a matter of fact, she did.” Chizuru spoke hesitantly, and Sano could see her thoughts following the same direction as his. “She asked permission to take the evening off, and I granted it.”
“Why did you?” Sano knew that servants were traditionally allowed two days off work per year-one during the eighth month, and the other during the twelfth. The night before the trip qualified as neither holiday.
“Mariko said she wanted to visit her mother, who was very ill and might die while she was away,” Chizuru explained. “I felt sorry for her, so I agreed.” Horror ascended in Chizuru’s intelligent eyes. “Do you think she went to tell the kidnappers about the trip instead of visiting her mother? She’d always been an honest, dutiful girl. I had no reason to think she was lying. If I’d suspected, I never would have let her go.” The thought that she’d inadvertently abetted the crime caused Chizuru to lose her poise for the first time Sano had ever seen. She looked flustered and miserable.
“Maybe she didn’t lie, and she was innocent,” Sano said, tempering his suspicion that Mariko had done exactly as Chizuru suggested. “But I need to know where else she might have gone besides her mother’s house.”
Chizuru made a gesture that indicated her willingness to do whatever possible to atone for the wrong she feared she’d done. “I can show you the records, if you’ll come with me.”
She took Sano to a tiny cell near the laundry courtyard and opened a ledger that contained dossiers on everyone who lived in the Large Interior. “That’s odd,” she said, as her finger traced the lines of characters beneath Mariko’s name. “The metsuke usually investigates all the palace servants and lists people who vouched for them. But the only information on Mariko is her mother’s name and place of residence: ‘Yuka, Umbrella-maker’s Street, Nihonbashi.’ ”
Sano’s suspicions about the maid deepened. How had she obtained employment here without references? How could the Dragon King have planted a spy in the innermost heart of the Tokugawa regime? A disturbing possibility that had been lurking in the back of Sano’s mind now emerged into the forefront. Was the Dragon King someone in the regime, who could bypass rules while plotting against the shogun?
Innate caution warned Sano against jumping to premature conclusions and voicing this idea that would wreak havoc in the court. First he must determine whether Mariko had indeed been the kidnapper’s accomplice.
“We’ll ask the other women if they know where Mariko went that night,” Sano said.
But when he and Chizuru questioned the maids, concubines, and ladies-in-waiting, they found that Mariko hadn’t confided her plans to anyone. Everyone who’d known she had permission to leave the castle had believed her story about her sick mother.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you,” Chizuru said unhappily as she escorted Sano out of the Large Interior.
“You did help. You’ve shown me where to go next,” Sano said. “Mariko’s mother may have information about her daughter that could lead me to the kidnappers.”
“The door to the tower prison creaked open, and in strode two guards. Keisho-in and Lady Yanagisawa uttered startled exclamations; Midori squealed. Reiko experienced the frightening conviction that the men had come for her again, as she’d anticipated they would after they’d brought her back from the Dragon King’s castle more than an hour ago. She and the other women cowered together, braced for some new horror.
But the men just herded them into a corner and stood watch over them. Six more guards entered. They mopped the floor, carried out the brimming waste buckets, and returned them emptied and cleaned, while the women watched in amazement. They brought bedding, tatami to cover the floor, hot water in a basin, and cloths for washing. They set out bowls of dried fish, pickled vegetables, fruits, and eggs, and pots of rice and tea, then departed the room, securing the door behind them.
Keisho-in immediately fell upon the food, wolfing it down with sloppy abandon. “At last, they’ve decided to show me some proper respect,” she said. “It’s about time.”