try.'
'Very well.' The abbess sounded resigned; she knew she couldn't deny a request backed by Sano's authority.
Inside, the convent was quiet; the nuns and novices had left to pray in the temples or do charity work among the poor. The corridor down which Reiko walked was a dim tunnel that echoed with her footsteps and the patter of rain on the roof. Flies buzzed somewhere in the building. Reiko experienced a sudden stab of premonition.
She hastened toward the bedchamber. She ran through the door, breathless with sudden fright, and stopped.
The bed where Tengu-in had lain yesterday was empty, the quilt flung off the mattress. The buzzing was louder here. Reiko glanced around the chamber. She noticed a low wooden table placed in the middle of the floor. A tall, square wicker basket lay on its side near the table as if it had tumbled off. Reiko lifted her eyes above them and saw bare, withered feet dangling.
Her heart clenched; her breath caught as her gaze traveled upward and she discovered what had become of Tengu-in.
The nun's emaciated body, clad in its hemp robe, hung from the ceiling. The stout leather cord of her rosary was looped around her neck and tied to an exposed rafter. Tension had drawn the beads deep into her flesh, which was lividly bruised. Her head had fallen sideways; her face was bloated and purplish, the lips parted to reveal the swollen tongue caught between the teeth. Flies buzzed around the blood that trickled from her mouth.
A shrill scream blared. At first Reiko thought it was her own, involuntary reaction to the horrid spectacle of death. Then she turned and saw a young novice standing in the doorway, stricken by horror. The novice's face turned white, went blank. She swayed, then crumpled to the floor in a dead faint.
24
After their meeting with the shogun, Sano and Yanagisawa walked together, beneath the roof of an open corridor that joined two wings of the palace. Marume and Fukida trailed them. Silvery rain threaded down outside. The palace grounds were a blur of gray and green in which birds chirped, figures under umbrellas moved, and distant voices called.
'Another crisis averted,' Yanagisawa said. 'Good work, Sano-san.'
'You, too,' Sano said.
'In case you're wondering: I didn't put Yoritomo up to telling the shogun about your investigation. He did it on his own. My apologies.'
Sano saw no sign that Yanagisawa was lying. And Yoritomo had reason to do him a bad turn without anyone else's urging. 'I gladly accept your apology.' What else could Sano do until he knew Yanagisawa's intentions? Sano wasn't afraid to strike first, but he would rather not maneuver in the dark.
'By the way,' Yanagisawa said, 'I heard about your clever experiment at Edo Jail yesterday. I'm sorry it didn't work.'
'So am I.' Once again Sano was impressed with how fast Yanagisawa received news. Now he saw a chance to fish for clues about the meeting that Toda and Masahiro witnessed. 'Speaking of Yoritomo, I've tried to make amends to him for what happened last year, but he won't even talk to me.'
'He's young, and the young take things too hard. Give him time,' Yanagisawa said reasonably. 'He'll get over it.'
'Maybe he would be willing to let bygones be bygones if he had something new to think about.' Sano hinted, 'Maybe he needs a wife?'
Yanagisawa's calm expression didn't change, although he paused for an instant before he said casually, 'I suppose Yoritomo will marry someday.'
The space of that instant held everything Sano wanted to know, like a jar whose contents are hidden from view by its thick ceramic walls.
'Someday soon?' Sano prompted.
'Not in the foreseeable future. We're waiting for the right match.'
Sano wondered if the young woman that Yanagisawa and Yoritomo had met yesterday had turned out not to be the right one. If so, which side had refused? Who was she? Sano could feel Yanagisawa wondering whether Sano had learned about the miai, although Yanagisawa didn't ask.
Another question occurred to Sano. 'If Yoritomo were to marry, would the shogun mind?'
'Not at all,' Yanagisawa said, perfectly matter-of-fact, perfectly at ease. 'I've discussed it with His Excellency. He agrees that my son must carry on our family line, in keeping with tradition. His Excellency is fond of tradition. And as long as Yoritomo remains available to him, he has no objection to a marriage.'
That was the custom for male lovers: Marriage for either or both didn't disrupt their relationship.
'When I make a match for Yoritomo, you'll be the first to know,' Yanagisawa said. As they continued along the corridor, a group of officials approached them. Polite bows and greetings were exchanged. After the group passed, Yanagisawa said, 'What's the next step in your investigation?'
Sano noted how skillfully and quickly Yanagisawa had changed the subject. Now he was sure that the miai was part of some plan that Yanagisawa wanted to hide. But he couldn't press the issue without revealing that he knew about the miai because he had Yanagisawa under surveillance.
'I'll keep looking for the kidnapper,' Sano said.
They parted in mutual good cheer that was false on at least one side. As Marume and Fukida joined Sano, a servant from his estate came running toward them.
'Excuse me, Honorable Chamberlain,' the servant said. 'There's a message from Lady Reiko. She begs you to meet her at Keiaiji Convent right away. She says a nun is dead!'
When Sano, Hirata, Marume, and Fukida rode up to the convent, they found Reiko pacing the street outside the wall in a fever of anxiety while Lieutenant Tanuma hurried back and forth beside her with an umbrella.
'What happened?' Sano said as he and his men jumped off their horses.
'Tengu-in hanged herself.' Reiko tried not to cry. 'I found her.'
Sano shook his head. The other men looked as appalled as he was. Had the nun been so distressed by the kidnapping and rape that she'd taken her own life? Sano was also dismayed that Reiko had been first on the scene.
'What were you doing here?' he asked.
'I wanted to see if she could tell me any more about the man who kidnapped her.' Reiko spoke with sorrow and regret. 'Now she never can.'
Sano, Hirata, and the detectives strode into the convent; Reiko hurried to keep up with them. Sano said, 'Where is Tengu-in's body?'
'Right where I found it,' Reiko said. 'I told her people to leave everything as it was until you came.'
At least the death scene was intact, Sano thought.
The abbess, the novice that Sano had spoken to on his previous visit, and some nuns hovered in the corridor. The novice sobbed in the abbess's arms. 'I only left her for a moment,' she wailed. 'I never thought she would do something like this.'
The abbess shushed her. Everyone moved aside to let Sano pass. He and his group crossed the threshold of the bedchamber and gathered around Tengu-in's suspended corpse. Sano expelled his breath in a harsh sigh as they contemplated her limp body and her swollen, lifeless face that swarmed with flies.
'Are we sure this was suicide?' Marume asked.
That had been one of the questions on Sano's mind. He surveyed the room. 'It looks as if she pushed the table under the rafter, but she couldn't reach the rafter because the table was too low.'
Hirata continued Sano's reconstruction of the events that had led to the death. 'So she fetched the basket, put it on top of the table, and climbed on it.'
'I would have thought she was too weak to manage that. If only I'd gotten here sooner,' Reiko said.
'The will to die can be stronger than the will to live,' Hirata pointed out.
