on north, east, and west, the hills held the city remote from the outside world, but the feature that especially reinforced the peaceful atmosphere was the dearth of samurai.
Of all the people who crowded the streets, most were merchants, peasants, or priests. Fewer men sported the shaven crown and two swords of Sano’s class. Some were bakufu soldiers; others, accompanied by laden porters, were obviously travelers. Miyako was a civilian city whose business was commerce, religion, and hospitality. Inns, restaurants, and teahouses abounded. Sano glimpsed stores selling cloth and Buddhist prayer beads. In this place where fires, earthquakes, and floods necessitated frequent rebuilding, he saw nothing ancient and no trace of past wars.
However, his historian’s eye superimposed another scene upon the tranquil cityscape. Ruined buildings hulked. Fleeing refugees carried bundles on their backs; orphan children wailed; beggars and marauding outlaws roved. Smoke rose from temples burning in the hills. Through streets lined with rotting corpses filed the ghosts of armies that had ravaged Miyako throughout history. This dark vision echoed Sano’s troubled mood. Would he succeed at this investigation, or compound his disgrace with another failure? He thought of Reiko, who must surely be disappointed to miss a critical step of the case, but he couldn’t afford to disrupt his concentration by worrying about her now.
Abruptly, the party halted at a marketplace that crowded the avenue. Yoriki Hoshina said, “I apologize for the inconvenience. You’ve arrived on the first day of Obon.”
This was the Festival of the Dead, when people all over Japan welcomed the souls of the deceased back to the world of the living for a five-day visit. Vendors sold supplies for observing this important Buddhist holiday: incense and lotus flowers for tombs and altars, red earthenware dishes for serving the spirits of the dead during symbolic feasts, lanterns to guide the spirits home. Shoppers made way for the procession, which turned down another avenue, moving along a white plaster wall with vertical wooden beams, built on a stone foundation.
“This is the Imperial Palace,” Yoriki Hoshina said, dismounting at a gate guarded by Tokugawa sentries. “The main portal is reserved for the emperor’s use. We’ll enter here.”
Sano and his detectives dismounted. They and Hoshina entered a long passage inside the enclosure. From his study of palace maps, Sano guessed that the wall on his left hid the residence of abdicated emperors; only its trees and rooftops were visible. Opposite, fences bounded the estates of court nobles. A right turn led along another wall, through another gate, and Sano found himself transported to a time eight hundred years past.
An eerie calm lay over the Imperial Palace ’s famous Pond Garden. The lake spread like spilled quicksilver around islands, its surface overlaid with water lilies. Mandarin ducks roosted on a beach of black stones. Over beds of bright chrysanthemums, irises, and poppies, hummingbirds darted. Maple, cherry, and plum trees and bamboo stood resplendent in lush green leaf. The shrilling cicadas and tinkle of wind chimes, the scent of flowers and grass, the water and heat: all crystallized summer’s timeless essence. In the distance, drooping willows screened villas built in ancient style-raised on low stilts, connected by covered corridors. Sano saw no one except a gardener raking leaves. From within the palace walls, the hills seemed closer, giving the illusion that the surrounding city didn’t exist.
Awed to walk this sacred ground where the descendants of the Shinto gods lived, Sano trod respectfully; his men followed suit. Yoriki Hoshina marched down the gravel paths as if he belonged there: the shoshidai’s representatives had supreme authority over the palace. He led the way across a stone bridge to the pond’s largest island. There, shaded by pines, stood a tiny cottage built of rough cypress planks. Bamboo mullions latticed the window.
“This is where Left Minister Konoe was found,” Hoshina said, pointing at the foot of the cottage steps.
“How did he die?” Sano asked.
“The shoshidai wasn’t notified until the body had been prepared for the funeral, so all my knowledge comes from the report issued by the Imperial Court several days later,” Hoshina said. “That’s a violation of the law-we’re supposed to be informed immediately of all deaths in the palace. The court physician examined Konoe and said that he’d hemorrhaged almost all of his blood out his eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and anus. Apparently the internal organs had ruptured. And he was as limp as a rag because so many bones had been broken. But the doctor couldn’t determine the cause of this condition. There were no bruises or any other wounds on the body.”
Such a bizarre death couldn’t have been natural, and the delayed notification implied a cover-up, with murder the likely reason. As a possible explanation for Left Minister Konoe’s symptoms occurred to Sano, he felt a sudden apprehension. This could be a complex, dangerous case.
“Did anyone report a very loud, powerful scream at the time of Konoe’s death?” Sano asked.
Hoshina regarded Sano with surprise. “How did you know? People all over Miyako heard it; I did myself, all the way from across town. It was… unearthly.” A shiver passed over the yoriki. “Whatever happened to Konoe must have been extremely painful to produce such a scream from him.”
Sano had a different interpretation for the scream, which confirmed his suspicions. “Left Minister Konoe must have been a victim of murder by kiai,” he said. Combat without physical contact; the ultimate expression of the martial arts. “The scream was a ‘spirit cry’-a burst of pure mental energy, concentrated in the voice of the killer.”
Hoshina and the detectives stared at Sano in astonishment. That few samurai ever attained the ability to kill without weapons, by force of will alone, had made the practitioners of kiaijutsu the rarest, most fearsome and deadly warriors throughout history. The killer’s presence, mighty and monstrous, seemed to darken the tranquil garden, and Sano knew his companions sensed it too.
Then Yoriki Hoshina chuckled. “I’ve never heard of anyone actually killed by a scream. That theory sounds like superstition to me,” he said, expressing the modern skepticism that relegated amazing feats of martial arts to the realm of myth.
Sano had suspected that Hoshina might not be as compliant as he’d first seemed. Now he knew that Hoshina had a mind of his own; he wouldn’t automatically accept the judgment of a superior. Sano wondered if the locals knew of the circumstances that had brought him here, and whether Hoshina might take advantage of Sano’s shaky position in the bakufu. Many men rose to power by attacking vulnerable superiors, and while Sano had no particular reason to distrust Hoshina, he knew better than to think that Miyako politics were any different than Edo’s. Aware that he must assert his authority, Sano rose to Hoshina’s challenge.
“Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s tea master, Sen-no-Rikyu, averted an attack from the great General Kato Kiyomasa with a single glance that took away his strength,” Sano said. He himself had once thought kiaijutsu a lost art, but the murder of Left Minister Konoe had revived his belief that myths were based on fact. “Yagyu Matajuro, tutor of Tokugawa Ieyasu, could knock men unconscious with a shout.”
“I’ve always thought those legends were invented by charlatans wishing to bolster their reputations.” Hoshina’s tone was deferential, but the fact that he dared to argue told Sano he liked to be right and wasn’t afraid to take chances. 'Certainly, there haven’t been any recent, documented cases of death by kiai”.
“The general level of combat skill has declined; there are fewer great martial arts masters today,” Sano admitted. “But Miyako is a city with strong ties to the past. Someone here has apparently rediscovered the secret of kiaijutsu. The scream and the condition of the corpse indicate that Left Minister Konoe was indeed a victim of a spirit cry.”
Pronounced by the shogun’s highest representative, Sano’s opinion became the official cause of death. Rather than pursue the discussion and risk censure, Hoshina nodded and said respectfully, “Yes, Sosakan-sama.” Sano observed that he knew when to yield for the sake of self-preservation.
“Who discovered the remains?” Sano said, moving on to the next important topic.
“When the palace residents heard the scream, they rushed to see what it was,” Hoshina said. “Emperor Tomohito and his cousin Prince Momozono were first on the scene. They found Konoe alone, lying in a pool of blood.”
So the case involved at least two important members of the Imperial Court, Sano thought. “What time did this happen?”
“Around midnight,” said Hoshina.
“What was Left Minister Konoe doing out here so late?”
“No one admits to knowing.”
“You’ve questioned the palace residents, then?”
“Yes, I conducted a preliminary investigation,” Hoshina said, “to save you some trouble. The results are detailed in a report which I’ll give you later, but I’ll summarize them now. All the guards, servants, attendants, and
