Hirata took down his swords from the rack on the wall. “Something to do with the murder investigation.”
“And after that?” Suspicion inflected Midori’s voice. “Where are you going next?”
The atmosphere between them had been tense since he’d returned home from Ezogashima three months ago. Before that, he’d been gone much of five years while studying martial arts and roaming the country. The long periods apart had changed her as much as him. She was no longer the sweet, docile girl he’d left. While raising their children by herself, she’d grown a strong will of her own. She’d missed him, but she’d come to resent his absences, his abandonment of her.
“I don’t know.” Hirata hung his swords at his waist, deliberately uncooperative. He understood Midori’s need to keep track of him and her fear that he would leave again, but he chafed at her questions. It was his right to come and go as he pleased. A wife shouldn’t infringe on her husband’s freedom.
“When will you be back?” Midori said, but she didn’t wait for Hirata to brush her off again. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to wait and see, won’t I?”
They regarded each other with mutual antagonism. Hirata felt a pang of sorrow for the young couple in love they’d once been. Now they were almost strangers, always at odds. They’d not even had marital relations since Hirata had returned. He’d been busy, his strenuous martial arts practice diminished his sexual desire, and Midori was too angry.
From the corridor came the sound of children’s quarreling voices and running footsteps. Their little boy, Tatsuo, grabbed Midori’s skirts and cried, “Mama, she touched me!”
“I didn’t,” said Taeko. She tapped her finger on his head and giggled.
“See? She did it again,” Tatsuo whined.
Midori said, “Taeko, behave yourself, or I’ll lock you in your room. Tatsuo, if you don’t stop complaining, I’ll touch you, and I can promise you won’t like it.”
She raised her hand at the boy. Hirata was dismayed because Midori had vented her anger at him on their children. They didn’t deserve to suffer for what he’d done, and he felt guilty because he’d abandoned them as well as his wife. He and they were strangers, too. He tried to smile at them, but they retreated behind Midori. Tatsuo sucked his thumb; Taeko eyed Hirata warily.
“Your father is leaving,” Midori said. “Say good-bye, in case you never see him again.”
“Good-bye, Father,” mumbled the boy and girl.
“You’ll see me tonight,” Hirata said, vexed by Midori’s sniping. “I’ll be back then.”
“Go play.” Midori turned Tatsuo and Taeko around, swatted their behinds, and sent them running. She focused on Hirata a gaze filled with bitterness. “Don’t make promises to them that you can’t keep.”
Hirata knew how unreliable his promises were. His duty to Sano and his commitment to the martial arts must always come first. He felt torn because he missed his family and wanted a happy life with them. He wanted Midori to give him a chance to start anew. But his own anger and stubbornness prevented him from asking.
“I’m going,” he said, and walked out of the house.
Spring graced the palace with blooming azaleas, trees resplendent in new green leaf, and dewy grass. The sun shone on its gabled roofs and half-timbered walls. But scenic beauty was lost on Sano as he and his entourage joined Hirata at the entrance. They barreled past the doors, through chambers filled with officials, and down the passages, and burst into the cavernous main reception room. There Sano found his mother kneeling before the dais, her gray head bowed, her hands tied behind her back with coarse rope. Her frail, bent body, clad in an old brown kimono, trembled. The shogun stood over her.
“Did you kill my cousin?” he demanded. When she didn’t reply, he smacked her face. She cringed. He looked excited and proud of himself, a weak person tormenting a weaker one. “Answer me!”
Lord Matsudaira sat nearby on the dais, brimming with evil enjoyment. A few allies knelt behind him, come to watch the fun. Sano noticed a new face among them: Lord Arima, daimyo of Kurume Province. Lord Arima’s topknot was gray, but his face was ageless, as if his skin were preserved in oil. His expressions were so fleeting that they never left a wrinkle. The Matsudaira troops, positioned with the shogun’s along the walls, watched impassively. The scene so enraged Sano that he forswore the required courtesies. He strode up to the shogun and pushed him away from his mother.
“Leave her alone!”
The shogun reeled backward. Everyone else stared, shocked that Sano would lay a hand on their lord. Even Lord Matsudaira appeared flummoxed by Sano’s nerve.
“This woman has been accused of killing Tadatoshi,” the shogun huffed. “I’m, ahh, interrogating her.”
“She’s my mother,” Sano said, furious.
Hands on his hips, the shogun said, “I don’t care if she’s the Buddha’s mother. If she killed my cousin, I’m going to make her confess.”
“Mother, are you all right?” Sano asked.
She gazed up at him. Her gentle, drooping features were blank with terror. She didn’t seem to recognize Sano. He untied the rope and held her hands. They were cold and blue from lack of blood circulation. He felt her shivering, heard her soft whimpers.
“She had nothing to do with Tadatoshi’s murder,” Sano told the shogun. “She’s innocent.”
“Of course you would say that.” The shogun swelled up with obstinacy. “You’re her son. But I know better.”
“How?” Sano demanded. “What proof do you have?”
“Why, ahh-” The shogun floundered, subsiding into his usual cowed witlessness. “They said so.”
“‘they’ meaning ‘you.’” Sano turned on Lord Matsudaira. “This is your doing. You’re attacking me by accusing my mother.”
Lord Matsudaira gave Sano a look that warned him not to bring their rivalry into the open. “Consider it retribution if you like. But I’m not the one who accused her.”
“Oh?” Sano said in scornful disbelief. “Then who did?”
A samurai stepped forward from the ranks along the wall. “I did.”
“Who are you?” Sano asked.
“Colonel Doi Naokatsu.”
He was in his sixties, but only his gray hair and the roughness of his voice betrayed his age. His tall physique appeared as strong and trim as that of a man decades younger. The skin on his face stretched as smoothly over its high cheekbones, prominent nose, and square jaw, as if he rarely smiled. An elaborate armor breastplate made of red and black leather marked him as a warrior of high rank.
Suspicion filled Sano. “What’s that symbol on your breastplate?”
Doi looked down at it, the Matsudaira clan crest. Now Sano recalled hearing Doi’s name before. He’d fought for Lord Matsudaira in the battle against the former chamberlain Yanagisawa. Sano said to Lord Matsudaira, “You put him up to this.”
“Why would he do that?” the shogun said, perplexed.
Lord Matsudaira’s face was a slick mask of innocence. “Honorable Cousin, Chamberlain Sano, I can assure you that I did not.”
“When I heard that Tadatoshi’s remains had been discovered, I came forward voluntarily,” Colonel Doi said to Sano. “I have information pertaining to the murder. Before you rush to believe that your mother has been framed, you’d better hear it.”
6
“Nothing you say can change the fact that my mother didn’t kill Tadatoshi,” Sano said, offended by Colonel Doi’s patently false claim.
“How can you be so, ahh, certain, when you haven’t even heard his story?” the shogun said. “I order you to listen.” He waved an imperious hand at Doi. “Proceed.”
Sano had no choice but to shut up and seethe. The evil smile on Lord Matsudaira’s face widened. Doi said, “I was Tadatoshi’s personal bodyguard. I lived in his estate.”
