their father. He loves them as much as if he were.”
“You were unfaithful to your husband? You had your children by another man?” Sano didn’t understand why Minister Ogyu would have paid blackmail to hide his wife’s affair. “Why didn’t he just divorce you?”
“That’s not how it happened,” Lady Ogyu said vehemently. “It was before we met.” Her gaze clouded, as if with polluted memories. When she spoke, her voice was high and tiny. “He would come into my bed at night. He would lie on top of me and push himself between my legs. He would put his hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t cry out. My sisters knew what was going on. They were there in the room. They must have heard.” Lady Ogyu’s face took on a childishly frightened cast. She was describing a rape inflicted on her when she was a girl, Sano realized. “But they pretended to be asleep. Because they were scared of him. If it wasn’t me, it would be one of them. He was our brother. Our father let him do whatever he wanted.”
“You don’t have to tell me this.” Sano looked at her children. They watched her, their faces blank. He didn’t want them listening even if they were too young to understand. He also doubted that the story had any bearing on the blackmail. Incest was common; so was sex between adults and children. Sano considered both detestable, but neither was against the law; society usually looked the other way. Had Madam Usugumo revealed this secret, the rapist wouldn’t have been punished, and neither Lady Ogyu’s reputation nor her husband’s would have suffered. Minister Ogyu would have realized that.
Lady Ogyu said, as if she were too immersed in the past to hear Sano, “It went on for years. Until my mother noticed I was sick in the mornings. She took me to my father and told him I was with child. He was very angry. He hit me and called me a disgrace to the family. He didn’t ask who the child’s father was. I think he guessed. I didn’t tell him. He never let anyone say anything bad about my brother. He decided that I should be married off right away.”
That was the usual solution. But why would Minister Ogyu have wanted to cover up the fact that his wife had been pregnant when he married her? The children were legally his. Madam Usugumo couldn’t have proved he wasn’t their real father. And why would Lady Ogyu have killed Madam Usugumo? She was safely, respectably married to the man who’d accepted her and her children. An incense teacher spreading gossip about her might have embarrassed her, at the very worst.
“I went to one miai after another.” Lady Ogyu’s face twisted with revulsion. “I couldn’t bear the men looking at me. I didn’t want to be with any man. I prayed that they wouldn’t want me. And they didn’t. Time went by. My parents were worried that they wouldn’t find me a husband soon enough. And then they introduced me to Ogyu- san. He agreed to marry me.”
Lady Ogyu spoke in her regular, adult voice, but her face still belonged to the terrified girl she’d been. “When the wedding was over, and my husband and I were alone, I was so afraid that I hid my face and cried. My husband asked what was wrong. I didn’t have the words to tell him, so I–I opened my robe.”
Sano imagined the scene, the darkened bedchamber, the tearful bride revealing her swollen belly. He could see the shock on Minister Ogyu’s face.
“I thought he would be angry at me for tricking him. But he wasn’t,” Lady Ogyu said. “He looked as if he were glad. He sat down beside me, and said, ‘I’m sorry. Who did this to you?’ He was so kind that I told him everything. And he said, ‘It’s all right.’” Gratitude filled Lady Ogyu’s voice. “He promised to take care of me. He said no one would ever know that I was pregnant before we married.
“Then he frowned, but not because he was angry; he seemed to be thinking hard. He said, ‘You never have to be afraid of me.’ And he started to undress.” Lady Ogyu sucked her breath in. “I thought he was going to, to-” She cringed. “I shut my eyes. I waited for him to climb on top of me and push himself between my legs. But he just said, ‘Look at me.’ He sounded as afraid as I was. I opened my eyes. And…”
Lady Ogyu blinked with remembered shock. “On top, he had…” Her hands cupped the air in front of her bosom. “And between his legs… nothing.”
As her meaning sunk in, Sano’s jaw dropped. Minister Ogyu had breasts where he shouldn’t. He had no penis where he should have. That was why a woman who feared men need not fear him. That was his secret.
“Your husband is female?” If Sano hadn’t already been kneeling, his astonishment would have knocked him to his knees. He was all the more shocked to remember that when he’d seen Minister Ogyu wheeling a barrow at the academy, he’d thought Ogyu was a woman. His senses had noticed what his mind hadn’t.
Lady Ogyu nodded as if she thought her marriage with another woman were the most natural thing in the world. “He told me that when he was born, his parents were disappointed because he was a girl, so they decided to turn him into a boy.”
Sano thought Madam Usugumo must have been thrilled when her incense ritual uncovered such rich ground for blackmail. Had she spread the story that Minister Ogyu was a woman, it would have aroused so much curiosity that the government would have eventually forced Minister Ogyu to reveal his sex. Then would come his humiliation and the loss of all his rights and privileges that depended on his being male.
“He said we were lucky that fate had brought us together,” Lady Ogyu said. “I thought so, too.” Sano saw how relieved she’d been that she need never again endure sexual relations with a man. “Because he’s kept his promise. He’s taken care of me. And the children. When they were born, he called them blessings.” Sano could imagine how thankful Minister Ogyu had been, conveniently provided with an heir, assured that no one would ever question his virility. “He’s been so good to us.”
At the Confucian academy Sano had witnessed Minister Ogyu’s love for his wife. Now he saw Lady Ogyu’s eyes brim with love for her husband. Had their love, based at first on mutual need, later become physical? Maybe it had. Sex between women was as natural as sex between men.
“For a long time I thought we were safe. After his parents died, I was the only person who knew about him. Except for…” Terror reclaimed Lady Ogyu’s expression. For the first time she looked directly at Sano. “Please, you must stop my husband!”
“Why?” Sano said, confused by her sudden change of mood. “Where is he?”
“He’s gone to Mitake.”
Sano recognized the name of the village where Reiko had gone to visit Minister Ogyu’s old nursemaid. “For what?”
Lady Ogyu began to cry. “At first he thought that since she hasn’t told yet, she never will. But this morning he changed his mind. He said that as long as there’s someone who knows about him, we’ll always be in danger. So he went to find Kasane. I begged him not to go, but he said it was for the best.” Lady Ogyu whispered, “Kasane was his mother’s midwife.”
A chill crept through Sano as realization penetrated his throbbing head. The midwife knew Minister Ogyu’s true sex. Minister Ogyu meant to eliminate her. Kasane was like a pebble in his shoe, whose existence he could no longer tolerate. Sano’s investigation had driven him to murder.
“He hasn’t hurt anyone yet! But if he’s not stopped…” Lady Ogyu’s speech disintegrated into babble.
If Minister Ogyu wasn’t stopped, Kasane’s blood would be on his hands even if Madam Usugumo’s and Lord Hosokawa’s daughters’ blood wasn’t.
“Marume- san!” Sano called. “Get one of my troops up here to guard Lady Ogyu. Hurry! We have to go to Mitake at once.”
As he ran out from under the roof, Sano prayed that Reiko wouldn’t be there when Minister Ogyu arrived.
38
Specks of light pierced the darkness of the wicker trunk in which Reiko lay. Her muscles ached from being bent in the same position for so long. The ropes bit into her wrists and ankles. Her mouth hurt around the gag, which was soaked with saliva. She smelled the musty odor of the trunk, the salty-sweet metallic rawness of Kasane’s blood, and the sour pungency of her own urine. Her robes were wet and cold; she shivered. Afraid that her body, in the throes of its panic, would expel the child from her womb, Reiko tried to calm herself with meditation techniques learned during her martial arts lessons. But her heart refused to slow its frantic pounding. Her harsh, rapid breaths were loud in the enclosed space. She forced herself not to strain against her bonds or try to scream. She must save her voice and strength for the time when-if-a chance to escape arose.
