Modestly declining the praise, Hirata knew who the best fighters in Edo really were, although he’d yet to see them strike a single blow. “I’ve heard of you, too. You protect villages from bandit gangs.”
“None other,” Onodera said cheerfully.
“What brings you here?”
“I was passing through Edo when the earthquake hit,” Onodera said. “I figured I would stay and see if I could help.”
“Well, I’m glad to find you and Iseki- san,” Hirata said, “because I need your help.” He spoke reluctantly because it felt weak and shameful. But he didn’t know what else to do.
“Who do you want me to fight?” Onodera put down his bowl, ready to dash into battle.
“No one.” At least not yet. “It’s information I need.”
“Information about what?”
Hirata hesitated, recalling his oath of silence to the secret society. But asking about the other members didn’t equal telling on them. “Three mystic martial artists. Their names are Tahara, Kitano, and Deguchi.”
Onodera’s eyes opened up as the smile left his face.
“You asked me about them, when was it, last year?” Iseki said. “Didn’t I tell you to stay away from them?”
“I should have listened,” Hirata said.
Iseki frowned, refilling Hirata’s tea bowl, adding a splash from a jar of sake.
Hirata drank. The tea was spicy and robust, the liquor eye-wateringly potent. “Do you know them?” he asked Onodera.
“I’ve never laid eyes on them, let alone seen them in action. But I’ve heard that they were Ozuno’s favorite disciples. Which means they have to be among the best martial artists who ever lived.”
Hirata felt a pang of jealousy. He’d thought he was Ozuno’s favorite. But he should have known better as soon as he’d met the three and learned Ozuno had been their mentor. “Is there anybody you know of who could tell me more?”
“A monk named Fuwa,” Onodera said. “He used to go around with them.”
“Where can I find him?” Hirata asked eagerly.
“Last I heard, he was living in Chiba.”
Hirata’s heart sank. The town of Chiba was a day’s journey from Edo. He could never make it there and back before the ritual.
Like every other neighborhood in town, the Hibiya administrative district, south of Edo Castle, had been severely damaged by the earthquake. Barriers made of logs, scrap wood, and piled stones enclosed the sites of the mansions where the city’s high officials had once lived and worked. Above the barriers Reiko could see the tops of tents that housed residents who had nowhere else to stay. Reiko called to her bearers to stop by a gate with shiny copper crests that looked incongruous remounted on beams made of cut logs. The sentries recognized her and let her in the gate. Walking toward the tents, Reiko heard muffled voices but saw no one.
“Grandmother?” she called.
A flap on one tent opened. A tiny old woman peered out. Bundled up from neck to toe, her body resembled a fat pile of quilts, but her head was as precisely modeled as that of a porcelain doll. Her silver hair was tied in a sleek knot, every hair oiled in place. Although she was past seventy, her skin was unlined; only her sagging jowls betrayed her age. She had the same delicate features and large, almond-shaped eyes as Reiko. Whenever Reiko saw her, she saw how she herself would look in the future, if she lived that long.
“What are you doing here?” her grandmother demanded. Her voice was hoarsened by the years but had nary a quaver.
“I came to see you, Grandmother,” Reiko said, bowing. She needed the old woman’s help with the investigation, but she was loath to ask.
“Dear me, is it New Year’s Day again?”
“Not yet.”
“And here I thought I was getting senile. New Year’s Day is the only time you ever come-when you bring your husband and children for your annual visit.”
Reiko felt the sting of rebuke, followed by the flare of temper that her grandmother never failed to provoke. “You’ve always made it clear that I’m not welcome.”
“Why would you be?” Disapproval crossed the old woman’s face. “You’re the most impertinent, unladylike creature I’ve had the misfortune to know.”
Their exchanges always went like this. Even when Reiko was a child, her grandmother never had a kind word for her, only criticism, scolding, and slaps, often for no apparent reason. At first Reiko had wept because her feelings were hurt and tried harder to please her grandmother. When she discovered that nothing she did was good enough, she’d decided to hate the mean old woman. Not until she was ten did she learn why her grandmother didn’t like her. She’d overheard a conversation between her grandmother and a visitor. Standing outside the room where they chatted, Reiko had listened to her grandmother say, “That brat killed her mother! I wish she’d never been born! If she hadn’t, my daughter would still be alive.”
Reiko had realized that her grandmother blamed her for her mother’s death during childbirth. How unfair that she would be hated for something that wasn’t her fault! The experience was one reason she was passionate about justice. She couldn’t bear to see innocent people wrongly condemned, or those guilty of harming others escape without punishment. She’d exercised her passion while observing the trials her father conducted and discussing them with him afterward, and while helping Sano with his investigations. But it seemed she could never set things right with the person who’d taught her the pain of injustice.
“Won’t you ever forgive me?” she asked.
“Forgive you for what?” Her grandmother feigned puzzlement. The hostility in her eyes said she knew exactly what Reiko meant. “For running wild when you were young, as if you were a boy instead of a girl? Riding horses and sword-fighting in the streets?” She snorted. “I can’t imagine what your father was thinking.”
He’d never held her mother’s death against her, Reiko knew. Magistrate Ueda had given her, his only child, so much love that she’d never missed having a mother. He’d rewarded her intelligence, strength, and courage with the education usually reserved for sons. Of course, her unconventional upbringing had worsened her relationship with her grandmother.
“That was a long time ago,” Reiko said.
“Oh, well, then. Should I forgive you for defying me when I tried to arrange a match for you?”
When Reiko had reached a marriageable age, her grandmother had obtained proposals from rich, important men. Reiko had refused them. Not only had she thought them too old, unattractive, and stuffy; she’d dreaded being trapped in the circumscribed existence of married women of her class. She’d held out until her father had insisted she attend the miai where she’d met Sano. She’d accepted Sano because he was young and handsome, and she’d heard of his exciting exploits. She’d gambled that he would be less conventional and more amenable to letting her do as she pleased than her other suitors, and she’d won.
“My husband is the shogun’s chamberlain,” Reiko said. “You couldn’t have asked for anyone higher than that.”
“I couldn’t have asked for anyone who gets in more trouble,” her grandmother retorted. Little that happened in the regime escaped her; she had sons, grandsons, and other relatives in high places, whom she badgered into telling her everything.
“We have two beautiful children,” Reiko said, because she hadn’t quite lost the habit of trying to show herself to her grandmother in a positive light. And another on the way.
“A pity, the way you’re raising them,” the old woman grumbled. “You’re too easy on them. I worry that they’ll go bad.”
Another reason that Reiko didn’t come more often was that her grandmother treated Masahiro and Akiko the same way she treated Reiko. Her temper ready to boil over, Reiko changed the subject. “Why are you still living in this tent, Grandmother?”
“Where else would I live?”
“I invited you to come and stay with me.” Although Reiko’s house was crowded, she could fit in one more person.