“So that’s who the boy was.” Rintayu’s voice was hushed with impressed enlightenment. “I’ve thought of him many times. I’ve always wondered.”
An accelerating current of excitement coursed through Sano. This seemed too good to be true. “You mean you know something about his death?”
Rintayu nodded. “I was there.”
Sano caught Hirata’s eye, and they shared the elation born of running across unexpected treasure. Sano said, “Tell me what happened.”
“It was two nights after the fire had burned out,” Rintayu said. “The smell of the smoke had faded and the alarm bells had stopped ringing. The hills were full of people who’d run away from the city. Dogs, too-hundreds of them that had escaped. All day I could hear movement through the woods. At night I could hear the dogs howling and the people crying.”
Sano imagined the aftermath of the fire as perceived by a blind man. It must have seemed a black netherworld that echoed with the sounds of suffering.
“They came to the shrine for help,” Rintayu continued. “I gave them the food I’d stored for the winter. I sheltered as many as I could in my cottage. When the food ran out, when I had nothing to offer them except prayers, they grew desperate. Some tried to break into the shrine to look for a warm place to sleep. I had to guard it. That night, I was standing outside the shrine when someone ran past me into the woods. He was panting and crying. It was the boy.”
Rintayu lifted his head as if at a sudden disturbance, as he must have done that night. His ears pricked backward like an animal’s; his nostrils flared. “More footsteps came after him, running. It was two young men. One of them shouted, ‘Don’t lose him!’ The other one shouted, ‘Where did he go?’”
Two young men. Sano felt a tentative relief. Whoever they were, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that they, not his mother, had apparently chased Tadatoshi with intent to harm, into the forest where his grave had been found.
“I knew he was in danger,” Rintayu said, “and I wanted to help, so I followed the men. It was dark, so they didn’t see me. I could hear them crashing through the woods, tripping and falling and yelling. But the sounds were echoing off the trees, and I couldn’t tell where they were. Then I heard a thud. The boy screamed. One of the men shouted, ‘I’ve got him!’”
Sano pictured a figure hurtling out of the dark woods, tackling Tadatoshi, bringing him down. Rintayu said, “There were more screams, and sounds of struggling and hitting. The man said, ‘Hold him still.’ The other said, ‘What are we going to do?’ The first said, ‘We have to kill him. What choice do we have?’
“The boy was crying. There were more fighting noises. Then I heard a thump, and the first man swore. I could tell by the sound, and his voice, that the boy had hit or kicked him in a bad spot. He shouted, ‘Come back here!’
“There was more running, more struggling. And more blows, and the boy screaming louder and crying. They were killing him.” Rintayu’s face showed the memory of his horror. “I hurried toward the noises.” He pantomimed running, the cane raised, his free hand groping his way. “But the boy stopped screaming. I was too late.”
Sano felt his heart beating as fast and hard as if he’d been at the scene himself. Elation swept through him. “Those two men killed Tadatoshi. No one else was there.” Sano finally had the witness to prove that his mother was innocent.
“But there was,” Rintayu said. “A woman. Didn’t I say?” He looked sheepish. “I guess I forgot to mention her. She was shouting and running with the men. She screamed while they were beating the boy. Afterward, she started to cry, and the men said, “‘Don’t be upset. It’s over. We did what we had to. It’s all right, Etsuko.’”
When Sano got home, he ignored the officials in the antechamber and the clerks who besieged him with urgent messages. His secretary ran alongside him, saying, “Honorable Chamberlain, the shogun wants to see you!”
“That’s too bad.” Sano kept going. He didn’t care if he offended the shogun; he didn’t care that this was a time when he could least afford to tax his lord’s goodwill.
“But he’s sent four messengers since you’ve been gone,” the secretary protested. “He’s been waiting for you all day. You must go to him immediately.”
“Let him wait.” Sano had business more important than catering to the shogun. He had to talk to his mother.
As he stormed down the corridor to the private quarters, he relived the moment when he’d heard Rintayu reveal that his mother had been present during the murder. “That can’t be,” he’d said in a turmoil of horror and astonishment. “Are you sure about her name?”
“As sure as I am that you want me not to be,” Rintayu had replied.
“Who were those men?”
“I don’t know. The woman heard me coming, and they all ran away.”
Sano’s belief in his mother’s innocence had died along with his hope of proving it. Rintayu’s story was the evidence he’d dreaded discovering, even as he’d pursued the truth about Tadatoshi’s murder. Shattered, he’d listened as Hirata had continued interrogating their witness.
“What happened then?” Hirata asked.
“I looked for the boy,” Rintayu said. “I hoped I could save him. But when I found him, he was dead. There was blood all over his body where they’d beaten him and cut him.”
“And you didn’t do anything?” Censure crept into Hirata’s voice.
“I did,” the old man insisted. “I couldn’t leave the poor boy out in the open, where the dogs would get him. They were starving; they’d have eaten him in no time. I got a shovel, dug a hole under an oak tree, and buried his body.”
Sano was stunned to learn that Tadatoshi’s killers hadn’t put him in his grave. He’d been buried by an innocent bystander who hadn’t seen, or had reason to fear, that he could be identified by the characters on his swords.
“No, I mean, didn’t you report the murder?” Hirata said.
“Not right away. There was no one to report a murder to. The police who hadn’t died in the fire had their hands full keeping order in the city. Later, when things settled down, I told them what had happened. But they weren’t interested. So many people had died; who cared about one boy? They figured he’d been killed in a fight over food. That happened a lot during those days.”
The police hadn’t known he was a member of the Tokugawa clan, or they would have investigated his murder, Sano thought. But his mother had known Tadatoshi. She’d known very well who he was. And she’d known that she had taken part in his murder all the while she’d told Sano she was innocent.
Now fury quickened Sano’s pace along the corridor. He remembered that Hirata had said, on their way back to the castle, “You shouldn’t be too quick to believe Rintayu. He’s a total stranger. Why take his word over your mother’s?”
“Because he has no reason to lie,” Sano answered, “whereas she obviously does.” And he’d felt certain all along that she had withheld the facts.
Reiko had been right about his mother’s guilt.
He arrived, winded and panting, in the guest room. His mother knelt at the dressing table, her profile toward him. She wore a silk kimono, patterned in lavender and forest green, that Reiko must have loaned her. She was brushing her hair. The kimono’s subdued yet rich colors and her long, loose hair gave her a semblance of youth and Sano a glimpse of how beautiful she’d been when she was young-when she’d murdered a boy. His rage at her burned hotter.
She turned to him and reverted to the old woman she was. Her wrinkled face brightened with the same fond affection as always when she saw Sano. Then she noticed his expression. “What is it?” she asked, her smile fading.
Sano said, “Tell me what happened to Tadatoshi. This time I want the truth.”
“I already told you everything. Stop hounding me!”
Her command momentarily silenced Sano. He flashed back to the time when his mother had been the boss, so long ago he’d almost forgotten. Recovering, he said, “You told me that you and Egen the tutor were lovers, that the two of you spied on Tadatoshi after you caught him setting a fire. But you didn’t tell me everything.”