“I washed Mariko and put her to bed,” Yuka said. “For four days she wouldn’t eat or do anything but lie there and weep. When she slept, she would cry out, ‘No, no!’ and act as if someone was attacking her.” Yuka pantomimed, tossing her head and thrashing her arms. “She would wake up screaming.”
Sano cautioned himself against seeing connections where none existed. He needed more evidence before he reverted to a theory that circumstances had proven wrong.
“I comforted her,” Yuka said, “and after awhile, she seemed calmer. Her wounds healed. She started eating and washing and dressing herself. I told her, ‘The world is dangerous. If you go, you’ll get hurt even worse. Stay here, where you’ll be safe.’ I thought Mariko understood. She stayed a month. She was polite and obedient and helped me with my work. But just as I began to believe she’d changed, she left again. The next time she came back was just before the New Year. There were two samurai with her. She said, ‘Mother, I’ve come to say good-bye.’
Weariness inflected Yuka’s voice. “By that time I wasn’t surprised by anything Mariko did. I said, ‘Where are you going?’ ‘To Edo Castle,’ she said. One of the samurai said, ‘She’s going to be a maid to the shogun’s mother,’ and they took her away. That’s the last time I ever saw Mariko.”
Another signal rang in Sano’s head as he perceived another clue that tied Mariko to the kidnapping. He let a moment pass in silence, allowing Yuka her sad thoughts. Then he said, “The shogun has ordered me to find the person responsible for crimes that include the murder of your daughter. I need your help.”
“Help?” Yuka looked up. Her face, streaked and mottled red by tears, seemed to have aged a decade. “What could I do to help you?”
“Give me directions to the inn where you went looking for Mariko.” Sano conjectured that the inn was where Mariko had gone the night before the trip.
“It’s on a road that crosses the main Ginza street, eight blocks past the silver mint,” Yuka said. “Turn left on the road. There’s a picture of a carp on the sign at the inn.”
“Can you describe the man you met there?” Sano said. Perhaps the man was the Dragon King or his henchman, as well as the father of Mariko’s stillborn child.
Yuka pondered. “He was maybe thirty-five years old, and tall.” Sano noted that almost anyone probably seemed tall to her. “He was handsome, but there was something about him that frightened me.” She frowned in an effort to articulate her impression. “It was his eyes. They were so black, like he could see out of them, but I couldn’t see in. I felt as if they could pull me into their darkness.”
“Did you get his name?” Sano asked.
Yuka shook her head. Although Sano questioned her at length, she couldn’t remember any more about the man. But perhaps the strange eyes would better serve to identify him than would details on his other features or his clothing.
“Who were the two samurai that came with Mariko the last time you saw her?” Sano said.
“I don’t know,” Yuka said. “They didn’t introduce themselves. And I was too afraid to even look closely at them. But they wore crests like yours.”
She pointed to the Tokugawa triple-hollyhock-leaf insignias on Sano’s surcoat. A chill of dismay stole through Sano. If the men who’d taken Mariko to Edo Castle were indeed Tokugawa retainers, then here was more evidence that someone in the bakufu had planted her as a spy in the Large Interior. Sano quailed at the thought of telling the shogun that a traitor lurked within the regime. He dreaded extending the search for the Dragon King into the ranks of his comrades, and the peril that would result. Yet Sano had never backed away from danger while in pursuit of the truth. To save Reiko and his lord’s mother, he would take the investigation wherever he must.
“Mariko must have done terrible things that I never knew about.” Yuka began to weep again. “Her death must have been the punishment she deserved.”
“Perhaps not,” Sano said, rising. “I think your daughter got involved with someone who forced her to do things she shouldn’t have.”
No matter if the evidence suggested that Mariko had been an accomplice in the kidnapping, Sano believed she’d also been an innocent victim, unaware of the Dragon King’s evil schemes and in thrall to him. The mystery surrounding her life hinted at how she’d become his unwitting tool, and how various threads of the crime intertwined. Sano also believed Mariko had brought him a step closer to the Dragon King. Now he had additional reasons to persevere with his investigation, no matter the risk to himself.
“I promise to bring Mariko’s killers to justice and avenge her murder,” Sano told Yuka.
22
I couldn’t tell Midori or Lady Keisho-in everything the Dragon King did because I don’t want to frighten them,” Reiko said to Lady Yanagisawa. “But I’ll tell you-if you can be brave enough to stand some bad news.”
“Yes. I can,” Lady Yanagisawa said eagerly, pleased that Reiko would confide in her, as she too seldom did.
It was early evening, and chill air crept into the prison. In the melancholy ocher light of sunset, Reiko and Lady Yanagisawa sat together in a corner, speaking in low tones while Midori and Keisho-in lay sleeping on the mattresses, covered by quilts. Mutters and shuffling noises came from guards stationed throughout the building. Birds cawed and flapped wildly in the trees outside; cicadas and crickets began their nocturnal dirge. A quickening breeze slapped waves against the base of the tower.
“I begged the Dragon King to let us go,” Reiko said, “and he refused. He wouldn’t even tell me where we are. When I asked why he’s holding us prisoners, he said he wanted revenge on someone he wouldn’t identify, for some reason I couldn’t understand. When I asked if he was going to kill us, he said he hoped not.”
“What did he mean?” Lady Yanagisawa said.
Reiko uttered a forlorn laugh. “I suppose that whether we live or die depends on his whim.”
Lady Yanagisawa experienced a dwindling hope of survival, yet their companionship eased her misery. She clasped Reiko’s hands. “If we must die, at least we’ll die together.”
She felt Reiko flinch, and sensed that her friend was still withholding information. “Was there something else that disturbed you?” she said, and not only because she wanted to know what else had happened between Reiko and the man who called himself the Dragon King.
Ever since she’d first laid eyes on Reiko almost four years ago, she’d wanted to know everything about her. Reiko epitomized all that Lady Yanagisawa lacked. Reiko was beautiful, while Lady Yanagisawa was ugly. Reiko had a husband who adored her; Lady Yanagisawa agonized in unrequited love for the chamberlain, who barely seemed aware that she existed. Reiko had a child who was as perfect as Kikuko was defective. Envy had turned Lady Yanagisawa’s interest in Reiko into an obsession.
Lady Yanagisawa had ordered her servants to find out from Reiko’s servants everything that Reiko did. When Reiko went out, Lady Yanagisawa had followed her at a distance, spying on her. Last winter she’d formed an acquaintance with Reiko that permitted welcome opportunities to learn about her. Whenever she visited Reiko, she sneaked around the house and rummaged through Reiko’s possessions. She memorized things Reiko said. She loved Reiko with an ardor that nearly equaled what she felt for her husband and daughter.
Yet deep within her smoldered a volcano of jealousy, fueled by anger that Reiko should have so much, and she so little. She bitterly resented that Reiko didn’t value their friendship as much as she did; at the same time, she cherished a vague idea that if they grew close enough, some of Reiko’s good fortune would magically transfer to her.